[Coordination in Multinational Enterprises]

by

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

Signed __________________ Date _________________

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a broad overview of potentials and possibilities for quantitative research in coordination in multinational enterprises. It will not delve in depth in any single method. That will be left for a series of articles to appear in this journal in the future. Instead, this thesis documents a nascent resurgence of quantitative methodologies in coordination in multinational enterprises research by considering the novel and powerful affordances a number of recent developments provide for scholars. It is based on our firm belief that the vitality of coordination in multinational enterprises scholarship depends both upon insightful and heuristic theory and upon rigorous and diverse methods. We argue, in short, that it is imperative to develop a vibrant quantitative research community for coordination in multinational enterprises research to continue to advance.

In so doing we do not mean to reignite the "paradigm wars" between quantitative and qualitative approaches that played out in the 1970s and 1980s among coordination in multinational enterprises scholars. We simply believe that there should be a greater recognition of the value of quantitative methods as a complement to the interpretive, critical, and discursive approaches.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Measurement5

Sampling8

Mixed Methods10

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW16

Multilevel Analysis17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY27

Evolutionary and Ecological Models29

Processes Of Variation, Selection, And Retention31

Evolutionary Sequence34

Communication Network Evolution38

Evolutionary Decay and Demise39

Organizational and Communication Genealogies40

Punctuated Equilibria40

Conclusion41

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION ANALYSIS43

Advances in Social Network Analysis43

Exponential Random Graph Modeling45

Simulation Investigation for Empirical Networks47

Bipartite Networks49

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS51

REFERENCES53

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This thesis addresses four opportunities afforded to coordination in multinational enterprises by recent developments in quantitative methods. For each we describe the opportunity and then offer some details on methods for taking advantage of it.

First, qualitative and critical studies have generated insightful theories, concepts, and findings that can be explored further and advanced using quantitative approaches. By this we do not mean a return to the old "prescientific function of rhetoric" (Bowers, 1968) viewpoint, which implies that qualitative studies discover phenomena that are then more definitively studied and

"completed" using quantitative approaches (see Edmondson & McManus, 2007, for one argument along this line). Rather, the traditional strengths of quantitative research, including its conscious distancing of the investigator from the object of study through systematic development and validation of measures, study design, and statistical hypothesis testing, are useful in further exploring the validity and reach of qualitative findings, contextualizing qualitative studies, and generating further questions for qualitative research through reinterpretation and critique of the quantitative results. In addition, mixed methods, here briefly introduced by Karen Myers, offer a formal approach to combining qualitative and quantitative ...