International production mandates of subsidiaries

Today's world can hardly be imagined without international production. To a large extent, the internationalization of corporations is associated with the internationalization of their production activities. Over the recent decades the sheer dimension and speed of growth of international production have reached unprecedented levels. Notwithstanding its practical relevance, the research field of international production is far from being saturated. The high importance of international production and the scarceness of empirical research at the intersection of international business and manufacturing strategy are the prime motivation for this book. A literature review uncovers that existing empirical studies mostly neglect the role of individual production locations within manufacturing networks. The author conducts a comprehensive empirical analysis of subsidiaries' international production mandates and corresponding determinants. For this purpose, a typology for international production mandates is developed based on the three generic internationalization strategies (imports, exports, local activities). This forms the basis to address three main research questions by analyzing data gathered from 272 foreign subsidiaries of German MNEs. Prior to the empirical analysis, conceptualizations and hypotheses are developed based on Trade, FDI and International Business theories as well as previous conceptual and empirical literature. A pluralistic theory approach is adopted in order to cope with the diverse motives of international production. Overall, a set of 16 hypotheses is subject to empirical testing within a structural equation model. Complementary, the research framework as well as empirical results are discussed with senior production managers in semi-structured case interviews.