[8] The Reading School approach argues that under certain conditions it is best for society to allow multinationals to decide for themselves whether to retain control of their technologies through foreign investment or to partner with local firms instead.
Major contributions have been made in this area by Robert Pearce, whose 1989 book was one of the first systematic analyses of the behaviour of the research and development activities of subsidiaries of multinational enterprise.
[20] Rajneesh Narula and Simon Collinson have established conceptual linkages between multinational enterprise activities and their use of outsourcing alliances within national systems of innovation.
Originally developed by Peter Buckley and John Dunning, this takes a macro-view of the interaction of multinational enterprise on structural change in countries.
This was later extended by a number of collaborative contributions by Rajneesh Narula and John Dunning on FDI and government,[23] and more recently on development and the multinational enterprise.
One of the core insights has been to better understand how learning by firms is motivated by the way in which foreign investors and domestic actors interact, and builds upon internalization theory and the eclectic paradigm.
This dates back to John Dunning’s involvement with UNCTAD in 1968 in drafting a report on the extent and pattern of UK direct investment in less developed countries (LDCs).
He was appointed in 1972 to the United Nation's Group of Eminent Persons to examine the role of multinational enterprise in economic development and international relations.
Other members of the Reading School have been engaged in advisory and consultancy roles in writing these reports and preparing background materials, including Mark Casson, Rajneesh Narula and Robert Pearce.