The Use of the Multinational Corporation as a Research Context
回顾了顶级管理期刊中跨国公司作为研究背景的运用，识别出三种主要目的：研究跨国公司特有现象、验证和扩展现有理论、发展新理论。作者认为发展新理论潜力最大但利用最少，并提出了提升贡献的建议。
The multinational corporation (MNC) has been increasingly used as a context for conceptual and empirical work. Based on a review of several leading management journals, we identify three main purposes for which the MNC has been employed: (1) study of MNC-specific phenomena; (2) validation and expansion of existing theories; and (3) development of new theories. We suggest that the latter purpose represents the highest potential contribution of MNC research, yet it is the least utilized so far. We then offer ideas of how to increase the contribution of MNC research through capturing the conceptual distinctiveness of the context, examining the theoretical paradoxes inherent in these organizations, and theorizing about novel combinative phenomena emerging in this context.