In this wide-ranging and groundbreaking new book, Robert Pearce provides an analytically-informed basis for understanding the modern multinational enterprise. It does this by tracing the development over the past half-century of two parallel strands of analysis in International Business; designated as the 'theoretical' and the 'practical'. The book shows how the practical restructuring of the MNE as an organisational form has responded to changes in the wider global economy and how this evolution has interfaced with the enriching of the relevant theorising. By tracing the persisting dynamics of the MNEs' structure and strategic positioning it demonstrates how what it is now can be used as a template for understanding and organising its further evolution as additional changes condition its environment.