Internationality adds a number of important new dimensions to the issue of organizational learning. First, in the course of internationalizing their operations, firms must learn how to exploit firm-specific assets acquired at their home base. Second, the source of continuing success in generating innovations is variety of skills and diversity of knowledge, not
homogeneity of skills. Obviously, what differentiates MNCs from organizations operating more
locally is that MNCs have the opportunity to take advantage of international variations of skills. Third, there is little doubt that MNCs can benefit from cross-border fertilization, for
knowledge creation is closely bound up with the notions of synergy, interdependence, and interactive organizational learning. The impli- cation is that a firm's capacity to innovate is not simply the sum of discrete capabilities. Rather, this capacity is the result of an interplay be- tween diverse units. In order to be successful, MNOs must be able to transfer locally
generated knowhow in an adaptive manner within its relatively broad range of cultural and political settings. Fourth, international firms must be able to integrate people from a wide spectrum of national cultures. However, internationally operating firms are confronted not only with the need to accommodate people from different cultures but also with the critical task of balancing the conflicting demands of channeling, promoting, and harnessing international diversity. Put in another way, international firms must find strategic, organizational, and social concepts that allow them to prevent variety from becoming disruptive and enable them to turn it into a distinct ad- vantage. This necessity is closely related to a fifth aspect. Because organizational learning in MNCs can exceed the contributions of single local units, it is useful for MNCs to adopt a broad, cosmopolitan perspective and to develop a non-ethnocentric mind-set. The management of MNCs, in particular, faces the challenge of
creating an atmosphere in which people treat each other as part of a solution rather than as part of a problem. If it does not meet that challenge, it is unlikely that MNCs will be able to take full advantage of their multinational op erations. To increase the chances that MNCs will be capable of optimizing their operations, specific research topics related to organizational learning must be emphasized and intensified in international management as an applied
science. There is a need to deepen insights into the relationship between contextual factors, different informational and communicational structures and techniques, the utilization of information, and firm's effectiveness. The a subdisciplines of international management that deal with organizational learning and knowledge have contributed an immense number of descriptive statements but only a small number of explanatory ones, and those of the latter type are, by their very nature, isolated from each other. The most important research task ahead is to develop an integrative theoretical framework that could subsequently serve as a platform for empirical investigations into the effects that specific information and communication situations
have on the efficiency and effectiveness of MNCs. The contribution would enable the researchers to accomplish their mission-the creation of applied know- ledge.