Being Local Worldwide

Fortune called Asea Brown Boveri, the giant multinational corporation created in 1987, "e;the most successful cross-border merger since Royal Dutch linked up with Britain's Shell in 1907."e; The coming together of two longtime national champions in the electrotechnical industry, Sweden's ASEA and Switzerland's Brown Boveri, marked the birth of a company with truly global aspirations, one whose apparent genius for combining strong central planning with local autonomy for its plants has made it a trendsetter.An international team of researchers assesses the dynamic interplay of the forces of convergence and diversity present in ABB. Together they examine the actual workings of this multinational-in order to learn to what degree the corporate strategies are achieved in its plants. Based on a multilevel organizational study, their book compares seven plants in six countries on three continents.