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Dynamic capabilities and multinational enterprise: Penrosean insights and omissions

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Abstract and Key Results

  • Penrose’s legacy is a curious one. Much cited, but little read, her work is recognized as one of the main intellectual foundations for modern resource based theories of business strategy and theories of organizational routines and capabilities.

  • However, Penrose did not aim to contribute to the field of strategy; her goal was to advance understanding of the nature of the firm and its growth. Nevertheless, there are important insights in Penrose’s work that have implications for international business and for strategy.

  • We discuss some of the implications of Penrose’s work as well as its limitations. We also briefly discuss the usefulness of adopting a “Penrosean” capability perspective in multinational enterprise (MNE) strategy analysis.

  • The dynamic capabilities framework puts entrepreneurial management into the theory of multinational enterprise, a task Penrose left untouched.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Mie Augier (Post-doctoral Fellow)

  2. Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    David J. Teece (Mitsubishi Bank Professor of International Business and Finance)

Authors
  1. Mie Augier
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  2. David J. Teece
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Augier, M., Teece, D.J. Dynamic capabilities and multinational enterprise: Penrosean insights and omissions. MANAGE. INT. REV. 47, 175–192 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-007-0010-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-007-0010-8

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