An increasing number of studies have been devoted to the effect MNEs may have on their host countries cultures and to the knowledge transfers they effect or attempt to effect, either to their own subsidiaries or to host country institutions and populations.We would like to show that these interactions can be considered as ‘co-evolution’ of the actors involved at the three different levels of institutional analysis—the micro, mezzo and macro levels. In this paper we would like to demonstrate how the different levels interact, learn from each other and evolve in a dynamics trend that co-influences all levels, as it implies co-evolution of the different levels. The understanding of the process of ‘co-evolution’, of how these multilevel interactions lead actors to influence each other’s perspectives, how these different level actors learn from each other is difficult to capture. In this paper, we will explore the complexity of MNE knowledge transfer leading to ‘co-evolution’ at all three institutional levels: the organizational level, the industry level and the country national/societal level. First, we will explore the concept of international knowledge transfer and its evolution from being perceived as unidirectional to being perceived as multi-directional. Second, we will build on the idea of co-evolution in organizational theory and expand it to international management knowledge transfers. Third, we will analyze how the reciprocity of the learning achieved by the emerging host country from the MNEs and the reciprocal influence the host country exerts on the MNES. Fourth we will relate our methodological exploration to a longitudinal study of Western retailers transferring their business models to Poland over 15 years in the late XX century. On the basis of our research, we will suggest that co-evolution in a Greenfield venture takes place primarily at the organizational level for the MNE, we will also show that all three levels concerned in the host country, which in turn influence back the MNEs’ behavior, leading to a process of ‘co-evolution’ of all the three levels.
