For much of the twentieth century, the prevalence of dictatorial regimes has left business, especially multinational firms, with a series of complex and for the most part unwelcome choices. This volume, which includes essays by noted American and European scholars such as Mira Wilkins, Gerald Feldman, Peter Hayes, and Wilfried Feldenkirchen, sets business activity in its political and social context and describes some of the strategic and tactical responses of firms investing from or into Europe to a myriad of opportunities and risks posed by host or home country authoritarian governments during the interwar period. Although principally a work of history, it puts into perspective some commercial dilemmas with which practitioners and business theorists must still unfortunately grapple.

Political risk was first introduced as a component for assessing risk not directly linked to economic factors following the flow of capital from the US to Europe after the Second World War. However, the concept has rapidly gained relevance since, with both public and private institutions developing complex methodologies designed to evaluate political risk factors and keep pace with the internationalization of trade and investment. Continued global and regional economic and political instability means a plethora of different actors today conduct a diverse range of political risk analyses and assessments. Starting from the epistemological foundations of political risk, this books bridges the gap between theory and practice, exploring operationalization and measurement issues with the support of an empirical case study on the Arab uprisings, discussing the role of expert judgment in political forecasting, and highlighting the main challenges and opportunities political risk analysts face in the wake of the digital revolution.

To date, there has been little consideration of the many different ways in which accounting and risk intersect, despite organisations being more determined than ever to build resilience against potential risks. This comprehensive volume overcomes this gap by providing an overview of the field, drawing together current knowledge of risk in a wide range of different accounting contexts. Key themes such as corporate governance, trust, uncertainty and climate change are covered by a global array of contributing scholars. These contributions are divided into four areas: The broader aspects of risk and risk management Risk in financial reporting Risk in management accounting Risk monitoring The book is supported by a series of illustrative case studies which help to bring together theory and practice. With its wealth of examples and analyses, this volume provides essential reading for students, scholars and practitioners charged with understanding diverse facets of risk in the context of accounting in the business world.

International Business in Times of Crisis classifies studies of crises relevant to international business research following a global pandemic which exposed systems failures and fragilities closely across global economic, financial, political, and social systems.

Hitherto, the organization of international business has been studied mostly from a managerial point of view or by examining the relationship between firms and the economy. Yet, the development of the modern, multinational firm - the most important type of business organisation - has been strongly influenced by the conflicts that bedeviled the twentieth century. The volatile macroeconomic and political environments experienced by international business point to how important it is to study political risk. Consequently, Multinational Enterprise, Political Risk and Organisational Change: From Total War to Cold War breaks new ground: it argues that non-market elements and historical context are key to understanding the way international business has been organised. This edited volume offers an historical approach to analysing how multinational enterprise has developed over time and around the world, through a series of well-crafted chapters, on important topics in international economic and business history, written by authorities in their respective fields of study and research. The study is based on the underlying premise that the coming of the two World Wars, the devastating and long-term consequences of such total wars, and the ideological challenge of the Cold War acted as a pivot points in shaping the nature and character of multinational firms. By examining such phenomena, this study offers insights to anyone who has an interest in business, economic or political history, management and business studies, or international relations. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Harvard Business School Professor Geoffrey Jones has long been a student of the history of multinational enterprise. He has taken a leadership role in the field. This volume reflects the extraordinary breadth of his historical research, spanning continents and industries. His focus is on the firm as an actor on the stage of the history of globalization. This book contains a selection of his unpublished and published articles. Of special interest is his updated previously unpublished 2006 talk that explores how firms and entrepreneurs fit into the scholarly debates on the Great Divergence between the West and the Rest. This is a splendid collection. Mira Wilkins, Florida International University, US This fascinating volume explores the roles played by entrepreneurship and multinational enterprises in the development of the modern global world. Through a combination of new and previously published essays charting business developments from the nineteenth century onward, the author demonstrates how multinational corporations have driven globalization through the transfer of innovation and cultural values. The selected essays cover a range of topics, including studies of global industries and major corporations including Beiersdorf and Unilever. Additional chapters explore economic and corporate development in specific countries, such as India, Iran and Turkey. Merging rich historical evidence with discussion of the current state of global business, this book reveals how examining entrepreneurial activity and multinational strategies deepen explanations of global patterns of wealth and poverty. It offers compelling new perspectives on current debates about globalization from one of the most prominent scholars in the field of business history. This volume will appeal to students and professors of economics, entrepreneurship, international business and history as well as anyone with an interest in understanding the past, present and future of globalization.

This book summarises Mark Casson’s recent research on the multinational enterprise. This work is firmly rooted in history and examines the evolution of the internalisation theory of the multinational enterprise over the past forty years and, in the light of this, considers its potential for further development. The book also explores internationalisation theory in respect to marketing and brands, the supply chain, risk management as well as methodology.

This book deals with the activities of the Anglo-Dutch multinational during the war. Given the various threats faced by Unilever during the Nazi period, Ben Wubs argues that it was not self evident that the company would survive the war. Based on research into company sources which were hitherto unavailable, he shows the effect of the war on Unilev

Risk and EU Law considers the multiple reasons for the increase in the types and diversity of risks, as well as the potential magnitude of their undesirable effects. The book identifies such reasons as; the openness of liberal societies; market competition; the constant endeavour to innovate; as well as globalization and the impact of new technologies. It also explores topics surrounding the social epistemology of risk observation and management, the role of science in political and judicial decision-making and transnational risk regulation and contractual governance.

Aluminium was one of most cartelised industries in the international economic panorama of the 20th century. Born following the discovery of electrolytic smelting process in 1886, this industry, even in its infancy, established a cartel which characterised its history until nearly 1980. Managers of the aluminium industry from various historical eras and countries shared the same vision about the development of their industry: to keep prices as stable as possible in order to encourage expansions and to provide return on investments. Price instability, which characterised the trade of other commodities, was unknown to the aluminium industry. This book neither argues that cartels are fundamentally evil, nor attempts to demonstrate that cartels are optimal business organisations. It instead provides an in-depth and frank analysis of the internal working of industrial organisations and of the interplay between cartels and political powers and institutions. The International Aluminium Cartel offers explanations for the construction and collapse of cartels, descriptions of their operations, and an historical interpretation of their experiences. Incorporating information gleaned from a unique collection of private and public archives from several countries, this unique study will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including academics interested in industrial and business history.