Keeping the Global in Mind The Evolution of the Headquarters' Role in Global Multi-business Firms

This paper proposes a new model of the multinational firm, the Global Multi-business Firm (GMBF), with strategic foci on resource assembly and organizational animation. The demands of technology, globalization of customers, and competitive evolution do not permit haphazard local pursuit of either markets or capabilities, but require the GMBF to offer a broad global, multi-business perspective. The headquarters has a newly delicate, complex yet limited role of providing a global approach to strategic management. At the same time, the headquarters cannot hold tightly to its units, lest they become trapped in "managing for the last struggle", rather than the future. We summarize this challenge as "command without control".