Stay a step ahead of the global competition in food and fiber production, processing, and sales!
Multinational Agribusinesses is an essential guide to the inner workings of companies with direct investments in the food and fiber system in the United States and the world. The book provides in-depth and up-to-date analysis of the crucial issues facing multinational enterprises involved in input and output supply activities, commodity investment, food manufacturing, and food distribution. An international panel of academics and researchers working in economics and agriculture presents strategic management and economic analysis of agribusinesses representing a variety of sizes and nationalities.
Multinational Agribusinesses examines the key areas of concern to multinationals involved with food and drink processing and/or upstream industries, including recent trends, growth factors, innovations, product and geographic diversification, and intra-firm trade. The book presents updated statistics (total sales, agrifood sales, net income, employment figures, number of total businesses on overseas and home markets) on the world’s 100 largest food multinationals, and updated tables on sell-offs, divestitures, and plant closures. Multinational Agribusinesses looks at enterprises in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Brazil, including Ajinomoto®, Coca-Cola®, Nestlé®, Ralston Purina®, Unilever®, Barilla®, and the Charoen Pokphan Group®.
Multinational Agribusinesses provides managers with answers to the questions they consider every day, including:
- Why do some multinational agribusinesses grow faster than others?
- Is product or geographic diversification conducive to good performance?
- Are Japanese food multinationals a challenge to my business?
- What industrial and geographical strategies are my competitors using?
- Is my food multinational taking its research and development facilities abroad?
- Will foreign direct investment outflows reduce my country’s export of food?
- Are multinational agribusinesses from new source countries viable?
- Is the standard theory of the multinational enterprises applicable to food multinationals?
- What are the specificities of food multinationals compared to other multinationals?
- About the Editor
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction (Ruth Rama)
- Chapter 1. The Rise of Global Enterprises in the World’s Food Chain (Selma Tozanli)
- Introduction
- A Dichotomous Globalization Process
- Sectoral Globalization: Refocusing on Core Business Activities
- The Changing Structure of the World’s Food Oligopoly
- Concluding Remarks
- Appendix
- Chapter 2. The Performance of Multinational Agribusinesses: Effects of Product and Geographical Diversification (George Anastassopoulos and Ruth Rama)
- Introduction
- Theoretical Background
- Diversification, Size, and Rate of Growth
- Economic Specifications
- Concluding Remarks
- Appendix
- Chapter 3. Innovation in Food and Beverage Multinationals (Oscar Alfranca, Ruth Rama, and Nicholas von Tunzelmann)
- Introduction
- Patented Innovation in Food and Beverage Multinationals
- The Globalization of Innovative Activities
- Innovators and Their Strategies
- Concluding Remarks
- Appendix
- Chapter 4. Foreign Direct Investment in U.S. Food and Kindred Products (Daniel Pick and Thomas Worth)
- Introduction
- Recent Trends in FDI
- What Is Foreign Direct Investment and Why?
- Determinants of FDI
- Future Research
- Chapter 5. Multinational Food Corporations and Trade: The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Trade in the U.S. Food Industry (Andrew P. Barkley)
- Introduction
- Previous Literature
- An Empirical Model of the Impact of FDI on International Trade
- Data
- Regression Results
- Implications and Conclusions
- Chapter 6. External versus Internal Markets of the Multinational Enterprise: Intrafirm Trade in French Multinational Agribusiness (Emmanuelle Chevassus-Lozza, Jacques Gallezot, and Danielle Galliano)
- The Foundations of Intrafirm Trade
- Intrafirm Trade in French Agrofood Foreign Trade
- The Determinants of Intrafirm Trade in the French Agrofood Industry: Model and Results
- Conclusions
- Chapter 7. The Internationalization Paths of Australian and New Zealand Food MNEs (Bill Pritchard)
- Introduction
- Existing Research on Firm Internationalization
- The History and Political Economy of Antipodean Food Sectors
- Australia/New Zealand As a Base for Global Branded Food Companies: The Foster’s Group
- Using Australia/New Zealand As a Regional Base: Coca-Cola Amatil
- Leveraging Competitive Advantage: The Fonterra Story
- Conclusions
- Chapter 8. Regionalization, Globalization, and Multinational Agribusiness: A Comparative Perspective from Southeast Asia (David Burch and Jasper Goss)
- Introduction
- Approaches to the Study of TWMNEs
- Agrofood Multinational Companies in Asia: Unwieldy Giants or Nimble Opportunists?
- The Charoen Pokphand Group
- The Salim Group
- Southeast Asian Agrofood Multinationals: A Comparative Analysis
- Conclusions
- Chapter 9. Multinational Firms in the Brazilian Food Industry (Elizabeth Farina and Cláudia Viegas)
- Introduction
- General Overview of Foreign Direct Investments in Brazil and Latin America
- M&A: Main Strategy of Entry into the Brazilian Market
- The Brazilian Food Market As the Main Attraction for FDI
- Impacts on the Food Industry of Brazil
- Conclusions
- Appendix
- Index
- Reference Notes Included
Biography
Ruth Rama
