Global Strategy in Our Age of Chaos: How Will the Multinational Firm Survive?

Chaotic environments are producing unique and unprecedented challenges for multinational companies, challenges that raise important questions about whether and how multinationals will survive or wither away. This Element explores both the macro political, economic, technological, and social forces impacting international business and the strategic management adaptations that leading companies have deployed to respond to these challenges. We observe that a new organizational form – the Global Multi-Business – has evolved that may be especially adapted to respond to and challenge a world in which change is ubiquitous, with the direction of change unpredictable and the pace of change accelerating. It accomplishes this through the strategic assembly of the organization and the animation of its many parts.