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 purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of international programs in preparing participants for effective engagement in the world's economy and the complexity of multiple societies and cultures. The study's objective is to identify and assess the skills and competencies that are in demand for graduates of international programs, from both the United States and foreign perspectives, and their main economic social and civic contributions. This research project develops, pilots and validates a list of critical competencies and skills for persons starting careers in international settings, creating a unique and valuable product. In addition, the project uses the validated listing for gathering and analyzing preliminary empirical data to help understand and evaluate the outcomes and importance of these competencies from three different--yet related perspectives--major employers, preparation institutions, and recent graduates of the program. The researcher will address the following questions: 1. What are the competencies and skills being required of employees and perspective employees as identified by the businesses and the corporate world? 2. What are the competencies and skills being emphasized by academic institutions in preparing prospective employees for the world of work? 3. To what extent are the competencies and skills of academic programs congruent with the required competencies and skills of the corporate world? The products of this work provide for the first time a valuable foundation for policy, planning, research, evaluation, and marketing the nature and importance of high quality, well prepared higher education graduates to meet the needs of our country's global workforce.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly competing on their ability to utilise knowledge sourced from various parts of the world. In order to draw full advantage of a multinational presence, harnessing the potential of peripheral knowledge assets is a main strategic imperative. This thesis examines an activity that is central to MNCs use of such peripheral knowledge assets, namely the transfer of knowledge from one subunit to another. The knowledge transfer problem is approached in two ways: the extent to which subunits engage in knowledge transfer to other units in the organisation and the performance of knowledge transfer projects. The evidence provided in this thesis is derived from the analyses of quantitative data collected in two separate projects. A central argument concerns the importance of studying performance of knowledge transfer projects. Knowledge transfer is seen as distinct and purposeful projects. It is suggested that the performance of these transfer projects can be evaluated along the dimensions of transfer efficiency and transfer effectiveness. Results indicate that the extent to which subunits transfer knowledge to other MNC subunits is influenced by the presence of lateral integrative mechanisms as well as the presence of incentives to engage in knowledge transfer and subunit socialisation. Moreover, the operational structure of the subunit influences the extent of outbound knowledge transfer. The present evidence also suggests that subunit capabilities to knowledge transfer can be developed by accumulation of transfer experiences. However, even if subunits engage in knowledge transfer to an increasing degree, it is not self-evident that they become better at the task. In particular, these capabilities seem to be specific to source-recipient dyads, i.e. only experience from previous interactions in this dyad increase transfer performance. Evidence also suggests that authoritative pressure and centralised formal structures can lead to superficial collaboration in knowledge transfer. Finally, it is shown that despite the past years increasing interest in inter-firm networking as means to develop and access knowledge to innovative processes, such external interaction in subunits may compromise the possibilities to subsequently transfer the newly developed knowledge to be exploited in other parts of the MNC.

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In this paper, we examine the relationship between political risk as an international environmental determinant of capital structure as well as other factors that contribute to capital structure including leverage, foreign exchange risk, agency costs of debt, and collateral value of assets. We conducted this research on a sample of 200 Singaporean, non-financial, listed domiciled multinational firms over the period of 2005 to 2009. The results suggest that political risk is irrelevant to the multinational capital structure, foreign exchange risk, agency costs of debt, and (netted) collateral value of assets. We find that the results remain unchanged after controlling for size and industry. The findings produce evidence that foreign exchange risk, as another international factor is also irrelevant to the Singaporean multinational capital structure choice. Additionally, agency costs of debt and (netted) fixed assets have a negative association with leverage for Singaporean multinational corporations.

Contemporary studies in international management field conceptualize subsidiaries as semi-autonomous entities. By involving in entrepreneurial undertakings and strategic activities, subsidiaries could contribute strategic value to parent multinational corporation (MNC). Distinguishing from previous researches derived from entrepreneurship theory and done by Birkinshaw and his colleagues, this study incorporated human capital theory and knowledge-based view (KBV) to fulfill the existing research gap and enlarged our understanding of subsidiary entrepreneurship. This research proposed two models to unlock and testify the underexplored phenomenon of subsidiary entrepreneurship. In the first model, this research incorporated human capital management in MNCs context and testified that not merely top management team (TMT) entrepreneurial leadership and subsidiary entrepreneurial culture were critical antecedents of subsidiary¡¦s strategic initiative, but the human resource management (HRM) practices of subsidiary talent management played an important mediator to generate the entrepreneurial system. In the second model, this study demonstrated the cross-field integration and synthesis of entrepreneurial literatures, human capital theory and knowledge-based view and expressed a more comprehensive illustration of strategic entrepreneurship. This study certified that absorptive capacity could facilitate subsidiary¡¦s entrepreneurial culture and further enhance subsidiary¡¦s strategic initiative. Moreover, subsidiary¡¦s practices of talent management could facilitate its absorptive capacity and further contribute to subsidiary¡¦s strategic outputs. By analyzing the empirical data collected from 202 MNCs¡¦ foreign subsidiaries in Asian area, this study testified that the subsidiaries which could contribute strategic value creation for parent MNCs should equip multilayer of initiative-takings: the local distinctive capability, market initiative and knowledge outflow. Furthermore, the HRM practices of talent management in subsidiary played critical mediating role on both the development of organizational capability, improvement of absorptive capacity and the enhancement of subsidiary strategic initiative. TMT entrepreneurial leadership was the core engine which could activate subsidiary¡¦s mechanisms to facilitate the activities of strategic value creations.

With the emergence of China market, MNCs are so attracted by it on one hand, and so afraid of the high failure ratio of entering the Mainland China market. During the process of chasing the Mainland China market, MNCs usually rely on the subsidiaries of Taiwan for support, and utilize it to enter Mainland China. However, with the marker of Mainland China turning bigger and bigger, lots of MNC Taiwan subsidiaries seem to face the threat of substitution of China Subsidaries, and come up with the question weather Taiwan subsidiaries should be continued or not. This study has focused on the subsistence of Taiwan subsidiaries and the relationships between the Cross-Strait subsidiaries. This research is under the observation of Taiwan subsidiaries¡¦ value, Cross-Strait subsidiaries¡¦ resource asymmetry, and the nature of value activities, to explore how these variables influence the subsistence of MNCs¡¦ Taiwan subsidiaries. By Use of the strategic role of MNC subsidiaries, subsidiaries¡¦ dependence on MNCs, resource based view, and subsidiary¡¦s network characteristics, this research probe into the independent variable that influence the subsistence of Taiwan subsidiaries and the relation between Taiwan and China subsidiaries. This research uses questionary survey to collect data. The population is the list of foreignenterprises in Taiwan published by Dun and Bradstreet, 1999 / 2000. The subsidiaries belong to manufacturing industry and non-financial service industry and are owned by foreign MNCs. The scale of these subsidiaries is above 30 people and still under operation by now. We use multi-regression analysis, ANCOVA analysis, and binominal logistic regression analysis to examine the effects of independent variables on Taiwan subsidiaries¡¦ threat of subsistence. After analyzing 59 MNCs¡¦ Taiwan subsidiaries, the results reveal that the importance of Taiwan subsidiary, the resource and capability of Taiwan subsidiaries, the integration of Taiwan subsidiaries with MNCs, the local responsiveness of Taiwan subsidiaries , the industrial embracement of Taiwan subsidiaries, the similarity of value activities between Taiwan and China subsidiaries, do have influence on Taiwan subsidiaries¡¦ subsistence. In addation, different kinds of relation between Taiwan and China subsidiaries have its specific combination of dependent variables, and imply different degree of threat of subsistence.

With global competition on the rise, all enterprises must try to develop and keep their own core competitive advantage. To compete with other global business, the role of the research and development department is becoming more important. Innovative techniques or products have the ability to become an advantage. Therefore, improvement of the R&D department becomes a significant issue in the Global Business Management field. Enhancing the creative ability of R&D employees to increase the departments performance while confronting multi-national management issues raises some interesting problems. When a foreign-based company relocates to Taiwan, or foreign R&D employees are introduced to a local company, will they bring different cultures, and new approaches to the R&D department? In either case, does the R&D department try to adjust and blend different cultures to improve performance? When culture clashes occur, does the company try to apply some strategic control to match the new culture in the business? In order to solve the above questions, this research will focus on organizational culture, operational strategy and R&D performance. Including the classification of different organizational cultures and operational strategies,. Finally, analyzing the relationship among the organizational culture, operational strategy and the R&D performance and how they influence each other. After organizing the reference research and gathering the survey results from multi-national corporations of the top 500 businesses in Taiwan, we get the following results. 1. When a business leans toward a development culture, it helps to improve the global integration of the operational strategy and to further enhance the R&D performance. 2. When a business leans toward a rational culture, it is helpful to raise the local level of the operational strategy. 3. When a business leans toward a bureaucratic culture, the nature of bureaucracy lends itself to inefficiency. 4. When a business leans toward a development culture or a cohere culture, it is helpful to increase the number of patent rights, published essays from R&D, development of new products and the shift in technique 5. Global integration in multi-national corporations is directly proportional to R&D performance. Key words: multinational corporations, organizational culture, operational stratagem & R&D performance.

¢Ûanufacturing industry is leaning toward globalization. After year 2000, traditional manufacturing industry has gained some experience toward foreign operations. Consequently, continual investment toward foreign subsidiaries should be studied carefully according to the following three methods: sole ownership, cooperative ownership while retaining control, and investment without majority control of the foreign subsidiary. Careful study of each method is required for multinational corporations in order to avoid wasting time and resource on management. Potential pitfalls include, but are not limited to, losing control of the foreign subsidiary, disagreements between shareholders, inappropriate levels of management. This study is an analysis and discussion of the three different methods. This study for the international netting manufacturer is focussing on ¡§Human Resource Management Utilizing Strategy and Control Model¡¨. This method should be helpful in watching over the operations of the foreign subsidiary. Furthermore, the purpose of this study is to help the business manager, who may be located at the headquarters, to manage the foreign subsidiary in a highly competitive and unpredictable global economy. ¡§Human Resource Management Utilizing Strategy and Control Model¡¨ will also help the manager at foreign subsidiary to evaluate production output, organizational behavior, and local hiring practices. One of the prerequisites for using ¡§Human Resource Management Utilizing Strategy and Control Model¡¨ is the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). Using the AHP as a tool to cross compare different key factors, the process will arrive at a conclusion for the most effective way to manage the foreign subsidiary. One of the outcomes from the AHP process is a map for the top manager at headquarters. The manager will need to keep the map in mind at all times and follow through in the office. Whenever AHP is used as part of the practice, the manager can effectively implement ¡§Human Resource Management Utilizing Strategy and Control Model¡¨. The study arrives at the conclusion that global economy is an unstoppable future trend. Formulating a simple management system for multinational corporations can be beneficial for the netting manufacturer. With the simplified management system, distance, cultural, and language barriers can be overcome. With AHP process, a complex problem can be reduced systematically into solvable simple problems. The management system is flexible enough, that the managers using the system can redefine and synthesize new definitions to suit the particular business. Using top-down approach, if both headquarters and foreign subsidiaries use the same ¡§Human Resource Management Utilizing Strategy and Control Model¡¨ thoroughly, the multinational corporation can be come more competitive in all aspects.

The Study of Multinational Corporations¡¦ Knowledge Management ABSTRACT In order to look for lager space of growth and subsistence, Taiwanese corporations inevitably made direct investments in foreign countries and became members of worldwide multinational corporations (MNCs). According to their international expansion, the sources and distributions of these MNCs¡¦ resources and knowledge would not be limited by the boundaries among countries but be allocated effectively through two dimensions, Global Integration and Local Responsiveness. By twelve Taiwanese multinational corporations case study, the global integration and local responsiveness of multinational organizations¡¦ knowledge, the implementation situation of Knowledge Management, and the role of Human Resources Management while implementing Knowledge Management were all observed and discussed in this study. The proposition concluded by interviewing high-level managers of sample corporations are as follows: Proposition 1: The higher industrial technique maturity of multinational corporations is, the higher centralization of the allocation of corporations¡¦ resources and knowledge will be. Proposition 2: If the industrial technique maturity of multinational corporations is higher, explicit knowledge will be transferred across countries more than tacit knowledge. Proposition 3: The longer product life cycle of multinational corporations is, the more global integration ability of knowledge innovation strategy will be emphasized. Proposition 4: The higher local responsiveness need of multinational corporations¡¦ knowledge innovation strategy is, the higher ratio of value chain distributed in foreign subsidiaries will be. Proposition 5: The higher local responsiveness need of multinational corporations¡¦ knowledge innovation strategy is, the higher ratio of local employees hiring will be. Proposition 6: The more explicit knowledge of organization has, the more information technology infrastructure will be needed to implement knowledge management. The more tacit knowledge of organization has, the more important the tacit system will be, such as organizational culture, to implement knowledge management. Proposition 7: The corporations in technique growing industry will do knowledge processing in interactive way, and design the organization by commitment-base. Proposition 8: The role of human resources management will be more strategic during the early stage of knowledge management implementation. Proposition 9: If both of global integration and local responsiveness need of corporations¡¦ knowledge innovation strategy is required, the coordination and control role of human resources management will be more important.