BMI and De-internationalization

“As a rule, … loss of ground and lack of fresh reserves are the two main reasons for retreat. There may, however, be others, which we do not wish to exclude or minimize, having to do with the interdependence of the parts or with the overall plan.” Although cross-border activities of firms are far from being about “mutual destruction,” they are as much about competing parts of firms’ cross-border gestalts (pattern, capacity, and logic) as about competing interdependencies of these parts. In the face of critical events, they are also about knowing “how” to reconfigure these interdependencies and equally important knowing not only “why” and “when” to reconfigure these interdependencies but also “when” to “retreat,” partially or totally. During these critical events, the “blinds” can be and remain shut for various reasons, such as “an illusion of invulnerability that becomes shared by most members of the group” or “collective attempts to ignore or rationalize away items of information which might otherwise lead the group to reconsider shaky but cherished assumptions.” Indeed, “the difficulty of seeing things correctly … makes things appear quite different from what was expected.”