The Multinational Firm in Mainstream Management Research: Initial Rise, Golden Era, and Troubling Disappearance

This collection presents the most influential publications on multinational companies (MNCs) in Academy of Management (AOM) journals. We reveal a surprising life-cycle-like dynamic. MNC research began in the 1970s and was mostly phenomenon-driven. The period 1996–2005 saw impressive growth and high-impact publications, which we refer to as “the golden era” of MNC research. Two key contributions were efforts to develop a theory of the MNC, emphasizing its theoretical distinctiveness; and a shift from the traditional focus on the firm to a novel emphasis on the “firm in context.” However, after the mid-2000s, the MNC largely disappeared from AOM outlets. This is intriguing given MNCs’ increased importance politically, economically, and socially. Conversely, the international business (IB) field experienced significant growth, focusing on various new and important MNC-centered phenomena, and on pushing theoretical ideas pertinent to, and highlighted in, the MNC context. Thus, there is currently a notable divergence, or “silofication,” between AOM and IB communities, which we believe is to the detriment of scholarship. We discuss this development and suggest that renewed engagement of AOM with MNCs and more collaborative intellectual exchange with the IB community could start a new life cycle and “golden era” of AOM literature on multinationals.