Abstract

This paper considers the nature of international organisational learning by focusing on the multinational enterprise (MNE), in particular on the ways in which MNEs co-ordinate their diverse activities, and the various units or subsidiaries which support these activities, in order to enable effective learning to take place. The organizational learning and strategic management literatures are taken as the starting point for understanding some of the theoretical issues on learning while the contextual issues are explored through the literatures which have developed in the area of international management and strategic human resource management. The literature analysis provides the basis for the set of propositions which are offered as a means of clarifying and understanding the nature of nternational organisational learning and which provide the basis for a research agenda to explore these issues in practice.