跨国公司在华子公司战略演变的动因与路径

跨国公司如何制定其在华子公司战略以及战略如何演变已经成为跨国公司研究领域的重要问题.以当地化、一体化为框架,分别对跨国公司战略、跨国公司海外子公司战略及其演变进行研究,以此为基础展开对世界500强在华子公司的问卷调查,研究发现,跨国公司在华子公司可以分为积极型、自主型、接受型和静止型4种类型,同时存在稳定型、成长型、退化型和波动型4种演变路径,76.7%的跨国公司在华子公司具有稳定型或成长型的演变路径.跨国公司在华子公司战略角色演变受子公司选择、母公司决策和环境驱动三方面因素的影响,母公司决策使母子公司一体化程度提高,子公司选择使子公司当地化程度提高,而环境变动对子公司战略角色的影响方向不确定.     

跨国公司在华子公司战略角色演变——以当地化和一体化程度为框架

跨国公司如何制定海外子公司战略及其战略如何演变已经成为跨国公司研究领域的重要问题。本文以当地化和一体化为分析框架．对世界500强在华制造业子公司进行了问卷调查。研究发现，跨国公司在华子公司可以分为积极型、自主型、接受型和静止型四种类型，存在稳定型、成长型、退化型和波动型四种演变路径。而且近八成的在华子公司沿稳定型或成长型路径演变。     

跨国公司在华子公司战略角色演变的影响因素与路径：以业务范围和竞争能力为框架

通过文献研究和对世界500强在华子公司战略角色及其演变的问卷调查,发现以下结论:依据职能活动范围及竞争能力2个变量,跨国公司在华子公司可以分为单一活动、微型复制、高度专业化和战略中枢4种类型,同时存在稳定型、成长型、退化型和波动型4种演变路径。跨国公司在华子公司战略角色演变受子公司选择、母公司决策和环境驱动3方面因素的影响。跨国公司既可主动制定战略以调整子公司角色,也可以被动适应经营环境变化而改变子公司战略角色,二者均可能使子公司沿稳定型或成长型的路径演变。     

跨国公司在华子公司成长与发展战略的实证研究

自１９９５年以来 ,中国已经连续６年成为吸引外资最多的发展中国家①。截至目前为止 ,世界知名的５００家大型跨国公司已经有近４００家来华投资 ,而绝大多数的跨国公司又至少拥有１家在华子公司。由此可见 ,跨国公司的全球战略及其在华子公司的成长与发展对我国经济的影响日益显著。在这种特殊背景下对跨国公司在华子公司成长与发展战略的研究 ,将有助于透析跨国公司全球战略及其子公司战略的类型和演变。本文以跨国公司海外子公司的成长与发展理论为依据 ,通过对１４０多家跨国公司在华子公司进行问卷调查 ,对跨国公司在华子公司的成长与…     

跨国公司在华子公司角色演化:理论及案例分析

本文根据影响子公司角色转变的因素,将子公司的角色根据每种因素的强弱不同分为八种类型,即起步者、淘汰者、办事员、支持者、小诸侯、贡献者、直辖领袖和自由领袖.根据该子公司角色划分方法和演化路径分析方法,本文深入研究了一家跨国公司在华子公司-BEC公司的角色演化情况,研究证实了本文得出的角色划分方法和演化路径分析框架的适用性,也得到了跨国公司在华子公司的一个具体演化路径.     

基于软环境视角的跨国公司内部知识转移影响因素研究

为了探求软环境视角下跨国公司内部母子公司之间双向知识转移的影响因素,本文构建出包含知识本体因素、子公司自身因素和母子公司之间关系因素三构面的整合模型,提出相应理论假设,并以跨国公司在华子公司为样本进行问卷调研和统计分析。实证结果表明,知识的复杂性,在华子公司中外派人员能力、培训措施和知识存量价值,以及母子公司之间正式整合机制、信任水平和组织距离对跨国公司内部母子公司之间双向知识转移具有显著影响。     

跨国公司在华社会责任弱化的成本和博弈分析

随着跨国公司全球经营的深化,跨国公司社会责任弱化的问题越来越严重。本文主要从成本和博弈的角度分析了跨国公司对华子公司弱化社会责任的原因及解决的相关策略。     

多重制度压力下"战略柔性-环境伦理"匹配对企业绿色创新路径的影响北大核心

针对绿色创新过程中企业对制度压力的异质化响应机理不明的研究缺口,本文通过模糊集质性比较研究方法(fsQCA)进行条件组合,识别了企业绿色创新过程中"制度压力-战略柔性-环境伦理"的四种匹配路径类型:被动求生型、趋利避害型、认同应变型和自发变革型路径.研究发现,在趋利避害型和自发变革型路径中,资源柔性和协调柔性互补型联动匹配可响应甚至替代制度压力.在认同应变型路径中,环境伦理可促使企业认同规范压力,并通过与战略柔性的互补联动匹配响应规范压力.在被动求生型绿色创新路径中,规范压力可替代环境伦理和战略柔性,直接促发企业绿色创新.结论揭示了制度压力、战略柔性和环境伦理三者内部及彼此间的联动匹配关系,对制度理论和动态能力理论具有理论意义,且有助于企业绿色创新和政府政策制定.     

跨国公司知识转移：知识特性与转移工具研究

为了揭示知识特性和知识转移工具对跨国公司内部知识转移结果的影响程度,构建了一个包含知识特性、转移工具和知识跨国界转移结果的知识转移过程模型并做出相应假设,然后对跨国公司在华子公司做问卷调查,用结构方程模型对样本数据进行分析.实证结果显示,知识的默会性、简单嵌入性、初级转移工具对知识从国外母公司向中国子公司的跨国界转移起到了显著的直接作用,而高级转移工具对默会性起到了部分中介作用,对关系嵌入变量起到了完全中介作用.     

经济全球化与跨国公司战略选择

本文在对经济全球化背景、全球性战略特点以及三种主要的全球性战略和不同的国际战略联盟形式进行广泛分析的基础上指出跨国公司实施全球性战略并非是一种经济全球化趋势下的时髦选择,是否需要采用全球性的战略导向,采用何种类型的全球性战略,通过建立何种形式的国际战略联盟来实施全球参与的战略,关键要适应公司所处的外部环境和行业环境,要符合公司现有的能力,要服务于跨国公司特定的战略目标,同时要对多种影响因素进行综合的考虑,有针对性地设计、有选择地实施最能实现自身竞争优势的战略形式.     

Subnational FDI Legitimacy and Foreign Subsidiary Survival

We examine how organizational ecology and the strategic choice perspective can be combined to provide more contextualized insights into how multinational corporations (MNCs) can better counter environmental pressures with evolving subnational FDI legitimacy and improve the survival likelihood of their subsidiaries. We consider three organizational identity-based strategic choices, i.e., country-of-origin (COO) agglomeration, expatriate staffing level and subsidiary ownership level. We hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between FDI legitimacy and subsidiary mortality, and that this relationship will be moderated by the level of COO agglomeration at a subnational level. We also hypothesize that with improving FDI legitimacy, the use of higher levels of expatriates and ownership will jeopardize the survival of larger subsidiaries. A longitudinal dataset (2001–2016) for 3025 subsidiaries formed by 1147 Japanese MNCs in China was used in hypothesis testing. Results largely supported our hypotheses. We discuss how an identity-centered approach can contribute to theory and practice.     

Intra-firm Subsidiary Grouping and MNC Subsidiary Performance in China

Many multinational corporations (MNCs) operate multiple subsidiaries in a foreign country. Drawing upon literature of organizational network and business group, we hypothesize that the number of subsidiaries of an MNC has an impact on subsidiary financial performance in China. We further hypothesized two moderating effects, namely subsidiary's country of origin and subsidiary size. The results show that subsidiary grouping effect is more salient for subsidiaries from Japan and South Korea, and that larger subsidiaries are less affected by the subsidiary grouping effect. Our empirical results were based on a sample of 40,315 MNC subsidiaries in China. The findings underscore the importance of group-based competitive advantages of MNC subsidiaries in international business.     

Developing subsidiary contribution to the MNC—Subsidiary entrepreneurship and strategy creativity

Despite its theoretical and managerial significance, subsidiary entrepreneurship and its effects on subsidiary contribution remain underexplored in the literature. We propose that subsidiary entrepreneurship encourages more creative strategic responses to escalating environmental change. We explore the direct and mediating effects of subsidiary entrepreneurship on subsidiary contribution to the MNC, particularly subsidiary strategy creativity. We use structural equation modelling to test our propositions on data generated from surveying the population of Irish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs, and find strong support for our theoretical predictions. The managerial implications of subsidiary entrepreneurship in generating creative strategy, prompting strategic initiatives and improving performance are discussed.     

Sustaining competence creation in the multinational enterprise: The role of piloting in subsidiaries

While competence-creating subsidiaries have been widely acknowledged as a source of new capabilities for the multinational enterprise (MNE), less is known about how such subsidiaries continually renew their capabilities to sustain their competence-creating role over time. In this paper, we bring together theories of capability lifecycles and subsidiary capability to explore multiple case studies of competence-creating subsidiaries in the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector. We find that to sustain their competence creation over time, subsidiaries engage in what we call piloting: a fast-moving cycle of practices recognising opportunities and trends, innovating competences in response, and surrendering those competences that are expected to become ‘commoditised’ and obsolete to enable subsidiary repositioning and renewal. Our main contribution is to advance theory on competence-creating subsidiaries by revealing piloting as a mechanism for MNE strategic renewal. We also build on theories of subsidiary evolution by identifying how subsidiaries voluntarily surrender commoditising activities to allow resource flexibility for competence creation.     

Getting the seal of approval: Pathways to subsidiary initiative acceptance

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are proactive, entrepreneurial, and decentralized organizations. They seek to incorporate and leverage knowledge from their foreign subsidiaries. Initiatives in which subsidiaries pursue new business opportunities are one way that subsidiaries contribute to MNCs' knowledge stocks, but prior research suggests that few subsidiary initiatives secure headquarters approval. We argue that the extent to which initiatives are accepted by the headquarters of an MNC depends on a range of relational and contextual conditions that configure in complex ways. Using a neoconfigurational approach, we identify five equifinal configurations associated with the acceptance of subsidiary initiatives. We advance theory of subsidiary management by uncovering how subsidiary activities gain traction within the MNC.     

When Do Distance Effects Become Empirically Observable? An Investigation in the Context of Headquarters Value Creation for Subsidiaries

Integrating distance research with the behavioral strategy literature on MNC headquarters-subsidiary relations, this paper explores how the distance between headquarters and subsidiaries relates to value added by the headquarters. We show for 124 manufacturing subsidiaries in Europe that, on average, distance is unrelated to value added by headquarters but that this effect is contingent upon the extent to which the subsidiary is locally embedded. Only after a certain threshold level of subsidiary embeddedness, distance is negatively related to headquarters value added. This effect is more pronounced for cultural, economic, and administrative distances than for pure geographic distance, highlighting the critical role of contextual variation for MNCs.     

The Management of Information and Managers in Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations

A key challenge facing multinational corporations (MNCs) is how to encourage the development of firm specific advantages throughout the network of subsidiaries while maintaining global coherence. As a result, a critical task for top managers in the MNC is to structure the relationship between headquarters and subsidiaries. Thus, headquarters' control of subsidiary behaviour and performance becomes a central integrating function in the MNC. We examine first the relationship between the nationality of the MNC headquarters and its information management, namely the key performance metrics utilized by the parent to evaluate subsidiary performance. Second, we investigate the relationship between the MNC nationality and its management of managers, specifically, the transfer of parent company nationals and corporate acculturation. These questions are investigated in a study of MNC subsidiaries located in Australia, Ireland and Singapore. Our data provide strong evidence that MNCs of all nationalities place the greatest emphasis on financial metrics compared to other performance metrics. Moreover, there are differences in the degree of emphasis on performance metrics across MNC nationality. We found that Japanese and German MNCs place significantly less emphasis on financial measures than US and UK MNCs. Our hypotheses relating to the management of managers were also supported by the data. In comparison with all other MNC nationalities, Japanese MNCs place greater emphasis on the transfer of Japanese managers to overseas subsidiaries and less emphasis on corporate acculturation. While some researchers have argued that management control has become more isomorphic as a result of globalization, our results show that companies from different nationalities diverge in their practices.     

组织演化理论视角下的股权结构与子公司生存——环境突变、冗余资源的调节作用

本文运用组织演化理论、公司治理和资源基础观理论,以1932家非国有企业的子公司为样本,研究了股权结构、子公司冗余资源等因素对子公司应对环境变化能力的影响,对环境变化和子公司生存状况的动态演化进行了分析。研究发现,在环境较稳定时,合资子公司的失败危险高于独资子公司;而当环境发生突变时（如经济危机）,合资子公司的失败危险则低于独资子公司。冗余资源、资源使用效率和能力的不同是导致子公司在环境变化中生存状况差异的一个重要因素,子公司的股权结构在一定程度上会影响这种效率和能力。本研究证实了子公司的自治程度有助于培养其应对环境变化的能力,从而提高子公司的生存率。以往研究对股权结构与绩效关系多采用静态分析,本文将环境变化和冗余资源引入到分析框架中进行动态分析,丰富了该领域的研究成果。     

Subsidiary-level determinants of global initiatives in multinational corporations

This article examines subsidiary-level factors that promote global initiatives in MNCs. Global initiatives are a key capability of MNCs that domestic firms do not possess, yet there has been little research on how MNCs promote initiatives on a global basis. I draw principally on the knowledge-based view to develop a model in which three subsidiary-level variables explain the propensity of the MNC to pursue global initiatives. These variables are: (1) inter-unit networking, (2) subsidiary learning from internal and external sources, (3) shared strategic goals. A survey of 118 subsidiary managers, triangulated with interviews with 20 key informants, provides support for the hypothesized effect of subsidiary learning and shared strategic goals on global initiatives. The result for inter-unit networking is less clear. These variables combine to activate initiatives within the MNC and thus act as a source of competitiveness on a worldwide basis. The results have important implications for MNC managers as well as for theory, and these are discussed.