Politics and Power within Multinational Corporations: Mainstream Studies, Emerging Critical Approaches and Suggestions for Future Research

Given the increased public interest in the use and misuse of power in multinationals in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it is notable that power relations in multinational corporations (MNCs) have not gained enhanced attention in the academic community. What is missing so far in the study of MNCs is a systematic examination of how power and politics within MNCs have been addressed in mainstream international business (IB) and sociological research studying the MNC. This paper starts by critically reviewing these two mainstream approaches in the study of MNCs as organizations and seeking to understand the shortcomings of former research. Next, it reviews new emergent critical perspectives, which the authors call socio-political studies of MNCs, where power and politics are addressed not just more prominently, but also differently, from a more bottom-up and actor-centred perspective. After reviewing this emergent stream of research, the authors propose that future studies should take a more micro-political perspective and focus in more detail on the micro-foundations of power relations. In the concluding section, the authors show how future studies of MNCs can learn from both critical interactionist and discursive theories when analysing organizational politics and power relations. A framework is proposed for the study of micro-level political game-playing in MNCs, based on a three-dimensional framework for organizational power (episodic, rules of the game and domination), and some key research questions for future studies are suggested.