Global Strategic Responsiveness in Multinational Enterprise: An Emerging Concept

Phenomenology is established as a philosophical foundation of global strategic responsiveness, where enactivism, as ongoing interactions between individual actions in the environment and reactions to them in the surroundings, forms the human understanding of the changing context. Dynamic knowledge creation derives from these individual experiential insights that generate new knowledge in interpretive social processes instrumental for strategic renewal and organizational adaptation. We discuss the leadership requirements to establish flexible structures with empathetic values supportive of collaborative learning as a foundation for effective strategic response capabilities. We adopt insights from the transnational strategy typology and interactive strategy-making model to show how networked individuals across dispersed functions and geographies can generate adaptive responses. This approach integrates analytical coordination at headquarters with decentralized initiatives in operating entities and overseas subsidiaries to form adaptive strategic actions in the multinational corporation (MNC). It combines formal strategic direction with autonomy afforded to individuals in dispersed business units, allowing them to take responsive initiatives, learn from them, and discuss the implications for restructuring current activities. Organizational learning requires conditions where new insights can be accessed and exchanged openly across hierarchies, functions, and geographies to generate new knowledge in reconfigured business activities used for strategic renewal. It calls for effective knowledge creation processes with conducive organizational structures, climates, and values of empathy to engage many individuals in creative responses for a common purpose that can compose resources in adapted business activities to accommodate the changing demands of a turbulent global socio-political economic environment.