Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some…
Abstract
Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.
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Christine Holmström Lind and Olivia H. Kang
Purpose – The chapter aims at enhancing our understanding on how the headquarters involvement and subsidiary entrepreneurship during the innovation development process of…
Abstract
Purpose – The chapter aims at enhancing our understanding on how the headquarters involvement and subsidiary entrepreneurship during the innovation development process of multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries affect the outcome of the innovation in terms of their home market- and organisational performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on cross-sectional questionnaire survey data from 87 innovation projects in 64 MNC subsidiaries located in Europe, East Asia and the United States.
Findings – Subsidiary entrepreneurship during the innovation process has a positive impact on the subsidiary's market performance and a negative impact on its organisational performance, whereas the involvement of corporate headquarters has a negative impact on the market performance, and a positive impact on the organisational performance.
Research implications – The research provides a starting point for further research on the relationship between the management of innovation processes among MNC subsidiaries and the performance outcomes of such processes.
Practical implications – The study implies that there is a need for corporate managers to take into account the entrepreneurial endeavour of subsidiaries when formulating corporate innovation strategies.
Originality/value: Integrates a top-down and bottom-up perspective on the strategic management of innovation development processes in MNC subsidiaries.
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Haifen Lin and Jingqin Su
This paper aims to address how management practices successfully implemented somewhere else, namely adoptive management innovation, have been introduced into Chinese firms and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address how management practices successfully implemented somewhere else, namely adoptive management innovation, have been introduced into Chinese firms and then effectively implemented, or to investigate key activities of the generative mechanism through which an adoptive management innovation occurs.
Design/methodology/approach
Since the purpose of management innovation is to utilize organizational resources more efficiently and further their goals, with little intention to pursue differentiation and without any protection from patent, adoptive management innovation has been prevailing around China and even the whole world. Based on the conception of what makes adoptive management innovation unique, this paper attempts to investigate the case of the Organizational Efficiency Management of Jiangxi Mobile in China to identify key activities of adoptive management innovation and develop a two-interlinked-subprocess framework of adoption decision and implementation, aiming to offer suggestions for firms in adopting new management practices.
Findings
The results indicate that adoption of existing management practices or methods from somewhere else is a more complex and logical process rather than a simple one of knowledge transferring. It needs to integrate existing practices into new organizational context and establish their innovative value during implementation. One core element of the process framework is the emphasis on activities of problem diagnoses and realization of the fitness between management practices adopted and the new organizational context, and another one is the sequence of activities in the whole process.
Research limitations/implications
This research is constrained by at least three limitations. First, the authors' findings for the two-subprocess framework of adoptive management innovation need to be further confirmed for more organizations. Second, little attention has been paid to relative advantages of different sequence of activities. Third, when focusing on adoptive management innovation from a process perspective, this research does not address problems such as why some managers pursue innovative opportunities by introducing new practices, how contextual elements, internal elements, and top management teams affect management innovation, or how the performance of adoptive management innovation could be improved in China.
Originality/value
The findings offer some valuable insights for further research in how to explore the generative mechanism of organizational changes or innovations in China and hold important implications for management practices.
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Frank McDonald, Svetlana Warhurst and Matthew Allen
This paper investigates whether changes in autonomy and embeddedness in host locations by foreign owned subsidiaries are associated with improvements in performance by…
Abstract
This paper investigates whether changes in autonomy and embeddedness in host locations by foreign owned subsidiaries are associated with improvements in performance by subsidiaries. The results provide evidence that increasing operational decision‐making autonomy is associated with enhanced performance as measured by both subjective and more objective measures of performance. The results on the importance of increasing strategic decision‐making autonomy and embeddedness are less clear, with improved performance being detected in some cases, but only for the subjective measure of performance.
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The paper investigates the importance of six sources of technology as used by MNE subsidiaries operating in China. These are determined by the strategic roles of the subsidiaries…
Abstract
The paper investigates the importance of six sources of technology as used by MNE subsidiaries operating in China. These are determined by the strategic roles of the subsidiaries. This facilitates analysis of the role of technology both in the competitive development of the subsidiaries and Chinese industrialization. Though these subsidiaries build their bridgeheads in China (mainly to supply the Chinese market) around established, standardized parent‐group technology, there is a tendency to broaden technological scope (mostly locally accessed or generated), especially to generate the capability to develop new goods that target the Chinese market.
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This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of…
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This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.
Joao Pedro Couto and Jose Cabral Vieira
This paper examines the effect of national culture on the process of innovation and research and development activities in the subsidiaries of multinational companies. For this…
Abstract
This paper examines the effect of national culture on the process of innovation and research and development activities in the subsidiaries of multinational companies. For this purpose, we use a sample of 222 subsidiaries for five European countries. The paper has drawn up two important findings. Firstly, cultural dimensions such as individualism, masculinity, power distance and uncertainty avoidance influence research and development activities of the subsidiaries. Secondly, the type of management model, defined according to the location of the parent company, influence the organization of the research and development activities.
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Jill Juergensen, Rajneesh Narula and Irina Surdu
Organizational innovation (OI) is important for multinational enterprises to adapt to changes in their broader technological and market environments. Despite its power to…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizational innovation (OI) is important for multinational enterprises to adapt to changes in their broader technological and market environments. Despite its power to transform organizations, OI has remained at the periphery of international business (IB) scholarship. The purpose of this paper is that IB is particularly equipped to further the understanding of OI. IB studies place significant value on “context” and how the context in which the firm operates can enable or hinder the evolution of internal routines and practices, leading (or not) to OI.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors identify the key challenges which have contributed to the seemingly less important role of OI in IB, notable among them being the ambiguity of concepts associated with OI across different research fields. The authors advance the research agenda by offering a comprehensive definition of OI. The authors then put forward an integrative framework where the authors discuss the importance, and contribution, of IB to OI and vice versa.
Findings
The literature is characterized by terminological and empirical ambiguity. Some management scholars have coined the term “management innovation” with a clear element of invention and state-of-the-art attached to it. Others have referred to “organizational innovation,” when exploring incremental and targeted changes to extant team- and firm-level practices. In turn, IB scholars developed their own terminology, often (implicitly) referring to technological innovations as “asset-type firm-specific advantages” (FSAs) and associating OI with “transaction-type” FSAs.
Originality/value
The authors offer a new definition for OI – to address the challenges associated with terminological ambiguity. The authors put forward an integrative framework of OI in IB. The proposed framework of OI emphasizes the wider organizational context in which OI takes place, i.e. firm heterogeneity; and the broader external (IB) context of OI.
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Alain Verbeke and Wenlong Yuan
This paper proposes a new typology of Ownership (O) advantages as a function of their differential managerial implications in established multinational enterprises (MNEs). We…
Abstract
This paper proposes a new typology of Ownership (O) advantages as a function of their differential managerial implications in established multinational enterprises (MNEs). We argue that the mainstream typology of O advantages proposed in Dunning’s eclectic paradigm does not recognize the uniqueness of individual firms. We therefore propose a new typology of O advantages, which distinguishes among four types, based on the geographic source of such advantages and their transferability across borders. Moreover, we acknowledge the importance of resource recombination advantages. Two case examples illustrate the implications of the new typology for established MNEs.