Industrial Integration and Growth of Firm in TransitionEconomies: The case of a French Multinational Company

In the last decade, the prospect of accession of Central and East European countries (CEECs) tothe European Union has given momentum to the discussion of their economic integration into theEU. Thus, academic studies have generally focused on variables at the macro level and areconducted in the light of quantitative methodologies in social sciences. This paper instead focusesmainly on the industrial integration of the CEECs into the EU at the firm and inter-organisationallevel, and uses in-depth, face-to-face interview techniques. Examining the growth of amultinational firm that operates in CEE in the context of networks help us to determine the depthof east-west industrial networks. In this light, the aim of this paper is to contribute to thedevelopment of the ‘network alignment’ framework from the perspective of the multinationalcompanies located and operating in CEE. The growth of the French Soufflet Group in CEECs istaken as an exemplar to demonstrate the need to link the elements of the existing literature onforeign direct investment (multinational companies) with an evolutionary approach, throughconsideration of evolving and multiple networks...