No / Das hoch regulierte deutsche Arbeitsbeziehungsmodell steht immer wieder in der Kritik. Gelegentlich wird es als Grund für die Abwanderung deutscher Unternehmen ins weniger regulierte, mitbestimmungsfreie Ausland genannt, gelegentlich als mitverantwortlich für die angeblich geringen ausländischen Direktinvestitionen in Deutschland oder eine Unterbewertung deutscher Aktiengesellschaften angesehen ¿ das deutsche Modell sei eben international nicht anschlussfähig. Der Beitrag untersucht deutsche und amerikanische Tochterunternehmen in Gro¿britannien, weil einerseits das permissive Umfeld im Vereinten Königreich alle denkbaren Arbeitsbeziehungsstrukturen ¿ kollektive, direkte, Mischformen oder reines Managementprärogativ ¿ zulässt, andererseits mit den US-Tochtergesellschaften das internationale Benchmark-Modell Multinationaler Unternehmen als Vergleichsgruppe dient. Es wird danach gefragt, ob sich spezifische Arbeitsbeziehungsmodelle finden lassen und ob diese signifikante Einflüsse auf die betriebliche Performanz haben. / Hans Blocker Foundation

No / 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.

Yes / The authors use international business strategy and regional development literature to inform a set of propositions about the links between direct employment by foreign-owned subsidiaries in the manufacturing sector and the development of embeddedness and autonomy in these subsidiaries. A large-scale survey of French, German, and US manufacturing subsidiaries in the United Kingdom is used to test the importance of embeddedness (host-country sourcing and use of networks) and autonomy (decisionmaking and operational autonomy) for the growth of employment by foreign-owned subsidiaries and the growth of skilled jobs in such subsidiaries. The results indicate that growth of embeddedness and autonomy factors are important, especially for the growth of skilled jobs, but those subsidiaries that have this attribute are a minority of foreign-owned subsidiaries. In the light of these results, the authors argue that policies need to be geared towards developing embeddedness and encouraging the growth of autonomy in subsidiaries that are likely to be regarded as central to the overall objectives of multinational corporations (MNCs). This requires policymakers to be aware of the internationalisation strategies used by MNCs, particularly in the light of the emergence of new, low-cost, countries which can easily provide high-quality but low-cost manufacturing operations. An important conclusion is that simple promotion of networking among firms and supporting agencies, and attempts to improve the local asset pool are unlikely to be effective in most cases.

Yes / The paper develops a conceptual model on relationship between the strategic development of subsidiaries, in developed economies, and the development of higher valued operations that leads to increased employment of skilled labour. A concept of effective autonomy is developed in the paper. Effective autonomy is conceived as the ability of the subsidiary to implement and finance its desired increase in skilled labour. The interrelated effects between effective autonomy and intra and inter organisational relationships and employment of skilled labour are found to be uncertain because effective autonomy can be supportive of the development of intra and inter organisational relationships that requires a higher proportion of skilled labour, but effective autonomy can lead to deterioration in intra-organisational relationships thereby leading to a more peripheral role played by the subsidiary thus lowering the need for skilled employment. The conceptual model is based on changes in effective autonomy and intra and inter organisational relationships and is therefore set in the context of the evolution of the development of subsidiaries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Western Ontario, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-152).

No / This paper examines the relationship between foreign direct investment inflows and employment using international business strategy literature to identify the factors influencing the development of subsidiaries that might affect employment growth in host regions. A survey of German subsidiaries in North West England is used to test the significance of the variables that are identified as likely to affect employment. The results of logit regression indicate that entry mode, technology transfer, and firm age affect the growth of employment. The study also highlights that other factors, such as sector, organisational structure, the level of diversification of operations by subsidiaries in the local economy, and range of markets supplied may have important affects on employment. The research indicates that further conceptual and empirical work is required to clarify our understanding of how the organisational, operational, and diversification characteristics of subsidiaries affect employment.

The determinants of multinational corporation subsidiaries' role and evolution--An empirical study of MNC subsidiary in Taiwan.My paper contains five companies to study the subsidiaries' strategic role and evolution.

published_or_final_version / Modern Languages and Cultures / Master / Master of Philosophy

China is one of the largest outward foreign-direct-investors (OFDIs) and is rapidly internationalising. There are numerous studies about the internationalisation of Chinese MNCs, in particular their development, determinants, motivations and performance. Many scholars in international business argue that one of the major reasons for firms from emerging markets such as China to invest in developed economies is to assimilate new knowledge and resources; exploring learning by Chinese MNCs in the developed countries is therefore significant. However, there is little research about Chinese MNCs learning abroad and even fewer studies on the processes of learning. This thesis analyses these processes and the motivations of Chinese OFDI in the UK and explores how their subsidiaries learn, exploit knowledge, develop capabilities, and how they transfer knowledge and capabilities to the headquarters (HQs). In order to explore the learning of Chinese subsidiaries in the UK, it is crucial to understand the nature and motives of their OFDI to ensure the existence of learning in these firms. This dataset includes the largest survey (30 respondents) of Chinese subsidiaries in the UK and qualitative interviews with 40 employees in 15 subsidiaries and seven HQs of Chinese MNCs. Based on the resource-based view of the firm, absorptive capacity, knowledge transfer and Andersson, Forsgren and Holm’s (2001) processes of capabilities development in a MNC, a conceptual framework is developed, which guides data collection and analysis: this is then revised, based upon the study’s findings. This new framework suggests a unique process of capabilities development within a Chinese subsidiary and their HQs, two different learning circles. The longer learning circle presents Chinese subsidiaries exploiting new knowledge to develop capabilities and transfer the new capabilities to the HQs. The shorter learning circle shows Chinese subsidiaries sometimes transferring unexploited information and knowledge to the HQs. Whilst HQs develop capabilities through directly absorbing new knowledge created by subsidiaries, HQs also inhibit subsidiaries from collecting knowledge useful in developing new capabilities. Therefore, the learning and knowledge transfer in the subsidiaries is mainly based on the HQs’ interests and requests; thus under-utilising the absorptive capacity of subsidiaries. There are other important findings. The scope of learning in subsidiaries is restricted by the scope of their operations, especially in human resources, sales and marketing. There is also dissonance between the intent to learn and the actions of learning, which arises from the majority of these Chinese MNCs not having formal and systematic approaches towards learning, knowledge exploitation and knowledge transfer.

Previous studies often associated a specific type of ownership mode with the extent of control a parent firm may have over (strategic) decision-making in a foreign subsidiary, suggesting that parent firms should have higher control over wholly-owned subsidiaries (WoS) than international joint ventures (IJVs). Building on principal agent theory, we argue that in the Chinese context higher ownership levels do not necessarily have a positive effect on the extent of control over the foreign subsidiary. We further argue that cultural distance between the parent firm and the subsidiary moderates this relationship. We test our hypotheses using data from a sample of 156 foreign subsidiaries in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and find strong support for our arguments. Our findings show that in WoS parent firms reduce their extent of control, while in IJVs parent firms increase their extent of control. Moreover, we find that extent of control over WoS (IJVs) declines (increases) when cultural distance increases. Our results have significant theoretical implications for international business (IB) research as they challenge existing views with regard to the relationship between ownership mode and control as well as the moderating effect of cultural distance.