(EGM) Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia - Unido

etween locations and maximises the difference between manufacturing value-added (and,
ultimately, sales) and locational cost structures? Secondly, how should the assets and activity be
co-ordinated and controlled as a system? And thirdly, should the spatially differentiated
manufacturing plants producing similar products use similar technology and production
processes. In other words, how should capital/labour intensities be distributed across the
system?
The location decision concerns the relative merits of the cost and market-related
advantages between different locations. The control decision concerns whether or not to own,
or to have an option on ownership [Trigeorgis (1996)] through collaboration (for example
outsourcing, sub-contract, joint venture, strategic alliance with different firms). The similar
manufacturing process decision concerns horizontal integration and the effective technology
transfer between subsidiaries so as to enable rapid response to competitors and market changes.
In the new economic environment, MNEs desire for flexibility militates against the rigid
backward and forward vertical integration into input factors or into distribution of the earlier era
of MNEs organisation. The more advantageous alternative is to sub-contract production and
franchise sales (thereby distributing the associated risk profiles). The new economic perspective
for MNEs, in managing the international operations of their FDI, concentrates managerial
attention on: (i) the characteristics of volatility and uncertainty in markets; (ii) the value of
options and flexibility in entry modes for FDI; (iii) alliances, collaborative and network forms of
co-operation and competition; (iv) entrepreneurship within networks; (v) managerial
competence; and (vi) a corporate and organisational culture that is progressively more adaptable
to the demands of change. This set of valuable attributes translates into flexibility of operations.
This is the ability to orchestrate the allocation, and re-allocation, of resources efficiently,
smoothly and rapidly in anticipation of, and response to, change. The greater the amplitude and
frequency of change in the business environment, the greater this need for organisational and
operational flexibility.
The analysis indicated above highlights the issue of accelerated dynamic market entry and
exit as the strategic preference for MNEs. In a volatile environment, FDI can be seen as a high-
risk strategy - particularly in the absence of location specific compensating factors such as a
transparent and coherent business climate with the provision of both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’
infrastructure to do business. Reflecting the flexibility inherent in spatially distributed
production networks, the ‘hub’ and ‘spoke’ strategies employed by MNEs enable responsiveness
to market decline by divesting distribution assets to local partners (exercising one of the options
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