The three chapters in this section offer a commentary on and an alternative account to theories of internationalisation that stress either unrelenting globalisation, or the resilience of national management patterns and actions or a division of the world into fixed varieties of capitalism, effectively constructed with more or less market and state. All three offer a critique of claims for an enduring and nationally uniform business practice. In anticipation of empirical chapters that reveal a within-country change and diversity at odds with notions of unchanging national homogeneity, the three demonstrate the significance of endogenous (and not just exogenous) sources of change – a possibility inconceivable within variety of capitalism and national business system perspectives. They stress the remaking of management as a more dynamic, recurrent and variable practice, reflecting the fact that the integration of firms and national territories is more fluid and diverse than suggested by national business system approaches.

Chapter 2 outlines different approaches to the internationalisation of business and implications for management action within the firm, and suggests an alternative framework for thinking about and researching these processes. Three theories are reviewed: globalisation, national business systems and varieties of capitalism. This is followed by an exposition of the system, society and dominance framework that the book is informed by.

Globalisation implies a convergence of action around one set of best or standard efficiency practices, which are diffused through the market, technology and multinational agencies and which place all national or local models of action under intense competitive pressure.