Managing Differences - The Central Challenge of Global Strategy

Abstract

W HEN IT COMES TO GLOBAL STRATEGY, most business leaders and academics make two assumptions: first, that the central challenge is to strike the right balance between economies of scale and responsiveness to local conditions, and second, that the more emphasis companies place on scale economies in their worldwide operations, the more global their strategies will be. These assumptions are problematic. The main goal of any global strategy must be to manage the large differences that