The success of any organization depends on its structure and design. This Paper deals with the structures and designs of multinational firms. A firm's structure can be seen as the blueprint depicting the formal reporting relationships within the firm. It explains the manner in which the firm organizes its resources and capabilities into specific tasks and achieves coordination among these tasks. Organizational structure provides the skeleton on which the organization is designed. Structure has to match the strategy that the organization is following, in order to make best use of company resources. After reading this paper you should be able to explain the contingency factors that determine the structure of multinational firms; list and explain the different ways in which a multinational firm can be structured; explain the strengths and weaknesses of each structure in the light of the strategy being adopted; list and discuss the different forms multinational firms adopt to balance the need for global integration with the pressure for local responsiveness; choose a structure that supports the different forms of multinational firm.
Organization, company resources, structures
