Professor Alexandre Bohas together with Professors Aseem Kinra, and Michael J. Morley have published a new study with the title "Perlmutter revisited: revealing the anomic mindset” in the Journal of International Business Studies. It highlights cognitive limitations and identifies managerial behaviors which need to be considered while managing the organization’s global operations and environmental adaptation processes. This empirically identified managerial behavior, newly termed as the anomic mindset, emanates from an ex post rather than ex ante managerial response system, following a protracted period of involvement in the international business. The anomic mindset is conceptualized as a stock of knowledge, cognitive, and psychological attributes that result in managers returning to and entrenching themselves in an outdated worldview of business in opposition to a changing socio-economic context. The study thus reveals the disconnect that arises within internationally operating companies (MNEs) and their leadership under complex global supply chain operating environments and opens up interesting perspectives for organizational decision making and the information structures for global supply chain management. For example, it raises the question of how the identified behavioral patterns should be considered for the completeness of the strategic global supply chain decision, in terms of the local and global rationalities and preferences of the decision makers. Similarly, the study implies that research on digitization in global supply chains should consider culturally driven technology adoption and interpretation patterns in order to reflect the complexity of the global supply chain management reality.

The article may be accessed by following the link here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41267-021-00419-0