From Global to Metanational: How Companies Win in the Knowledge Economy [Hardcover]

Yves L. Doz (Author), Jose Santos (Author), Peter Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2001

Becoming a global company once meant penetrating markets around the world. But the demands of the knowledge economy are turning this strategy on its head. Today, the challenge is to innovate by learning from the world . This book provides a blueprint for companies ready to embrace this new globalization challenge. In "From Global to Metanational", international business and strategy experts Yves Doz, Jose Santos, and Peter Williamson introduce a radically different kind of company - the metanational - defined by three core capabilities: being the first to identify and capture new knowledge emerging all over the world; mobilizing this globally scattered knowledge to out-innovate competitors; and, turning this innovation into value by producing, marketing, and delivering efficiently on a global scale. The authors explain why traditional global strategies are no longer sufficient to differentiate leading competitors, what the knowledge economy means for managers, and why opportunities to leverage globally dispersed knowledge are growing. Most important, they outline exactly how managers can build a metanational advantage for their own organizations by: prospecting for and accessing untapped pockets of technology and emerging consumer trends from around the world; leveraging knowledge imprisoned in a multinational's local subsidiaries; and, mobilizing this fragmented knowledge to generate innovations, profits, and shareholder value. Drawing from the experiences of pioneering metanationals including STMicroelectronics, ARM, Acer, Nokia, Shiseido, and PolyGram, the book shows how today's multinationals can use their existing global networks to gain an important head start in the global game - and how newcomers can leapfrog traditional competitors by rapidly building a new-style metanational corporation. Must-reading for every leader - from the CEO of a new global venture, to the executive of a currently successful multinational, to the founder of an e-business startup getting ready to 'go global' - this pathbreaking book shows how to reshape strategies to compete and win in the global knowledge economy. Author Bio: Yves Doz is Timken Professor of Global Technology and Innovation at INSEAD. Jose Santos is Professor of International Management at INSEAD. Peter Williamson is Professor of International Management and Asian Business at INSEAD's Euro-Asia Centre.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Metanational" is the term that Jose Santos, Peter Williamson, and Yves L. Doz--management and technology professors at the international INSEAD graduate school of business--coined to describe a new type of global corporation. It refers, they explain in From Global to Metanational, to "a company that builds a new kind of competitive advantage by discovering, accessing, mobilizing, and leveraging knowledge from many locations around the world." And as they unveil and dissect the concept, it becomes apparent that it may indeed be an apt description for those worldwide enterprises most likely to succeed in our rapidly changing times. Based on interviews with 36 companies from America, Asia, and Europe (including long-established firms like 3M and Toyota and newcomers like Acer and Shiseido), the authors describe innovative ways to efficiently tap into "pockets of technology, market intelligence and ... specialist knowledge scattered around the world," rather than relying solely on input from a home nation or a few select locales. They explore how trailblazers are identifying this information wherever they find it, parlaying it into new products, services and processes, and merging the result with all sales, distribution, and marketing efforts. Anyone involved in multinational business should find this both provocative and potentially useful. --Howard Rothman

About the Author

Yves Doz is Timken Professor of Global Technology and Innovation at INSEAD.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 258 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1st edition (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875848702
• ISBN-13: 978-0875848709
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #957,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Finding knowledge in unlikely places, September 26, 2002

By 

Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Global to Metanational: How Companies Win in the Knowledge Economy (Hardcover)

What does a large company need to concentrate on for sustained success in a globalized world? Doz and his colleagues claim that it is to become metanational and to become good at innovating from a platform of bringing together knowledge from many different parts of the world. Metanationals differ from globalized companies in that they recognise that new ideas, products or directions may originate somewhere other than the corporate centre.

The focus of the authors is on innovation and they argue that this requires that the organization becomes good at :
* identifying where good ideas and special competencies are;
* mobilizing the often scattered capabilities and opportunities (they use the term 'becoming a magnet' for such capabilities); and
* optimising the size and configuration of operations for efficiency, flexibility and financial discipline.

This is a book that makes an important point about success in a globalized world, but presents one factor in success as if it was the whole. As with a number of books, I had an uncomfortable feeling that the content of a very good article was expanded into an only moderately good book.

The core message is important and useful. Organizations that operate on a global scale need to move beyond the extension of a unitary culture into new localities and recognise that new knowledge is found in unlikely places. They need to become excellent at recognising that knowledge, becoming an attractor for it, mobilizing it to provide a superior stream of innovations and operationalizing production, distribution and marketing into diverse markets.

The weakness is that the book is written at a fairly high conceptual level - for all the detailed example - that fails to get to grips with how to manage multiple cultures or the detail of innovation, or the issues of governance across countries. It also has surprisingly little on the major changes that are occurring in world consumer markets.

The book also falls into the 'one size fits all' trap. Issues of being effective globally are very different for a consumer fashion business, a high tech product or service industry and a major commodity business, but this is not recognised explicitly in the book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for international business, July 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: From Global to Metanational: How Companies Win in the Knowledge Economy (Hardcover)

This is one of the most refreshing books about managing multinationals that I have read. It goes one step beyond the idea of a transnational, proposing a new model of how a company can succeed by prospecting the world for new knowledge about technologies and customer behaviour and using this to innovate. It won't be easy to implement, but the last three chapters provide a good starting point about how to make it happen. I was convinced that if we didn't try and build a metanational we would simply be left behind.

3.0 out of 5 stars Book makes good points, but could equally well be accomplished in an article format, March 11, 2011

By 

Jackal (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: From Global to Metanational: How Companies Win in the Knowledge Economy (Hardcover)

The authors key point is that multinationals must learn to harness knowledge from around the world to remain competitive. The author based their description and recommendations on case study interviews with a handful of companies. There is nothing wrong with this approach as interesting new phenomena can surface. I accept the authors point that knowledge need to be harnessed. However, it is an empirical matter how much a multinational should spend on it and how harnessing is best accomplished. The book doesn't really enter into such a detailed discussion.

There is enough content for a good (ie five star) HBR article in this book. However, the material is a bit weak for a book length treatment. A more thoughtful recent book about the multinational is Ghemawat's Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter, which actually misses the knowledge harnessing point. However, that book is a managerial version of several different pieces of work so there is enough material for a book length treatment.