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The Interface Role of MNC's Taiwan Subsidiary While Parent Company Making Investment in Mainland China

Abstract
There is more than 20 years since Mainland China implemented the ¡¥open door¡¦ policy; starting from 1979. China¡¦s large and potential local market, abundant resources i.e. land, labors, raw-materials etc. and various taxation incentives are giving the great attractions to MNCs on making investments in China. On the opposite, Taiwan is now intertwined with the internal political turmoil and global economic downturn that lead the economic development to a situation of stasis. The current economic development in two sides of the strait has revealed the opposite trends, one is rising, and the other is shrinking. In face of such unpleasant situation, what can Taiwan do to create other opportunities for future economic development?
The focus of this thesis is on the changes of value activities of MNC¡¦s Subsidiaries in Taiwan. The main themes for this research are (1) MNCs have long been the key players of international investment since 1960s, and influenced substantially on the global economic development. The investment behaviors of MNCs in the new developing market - China have brought the high attentions of academic circles and practitioners. (2) In face of the rapid upraising of China, what are the changes of value activities in MNC¡¦s Subsidiaries in Taiwan? What are the possible solutions for future development of Taiwan? (3) Until now (per our understanding), there are few articles studying about the resources flow and the mutual dependence amongst MNC¡¦s HQ and Subsidiaries, this thesis provides the observations.
Therefore, this thesis covers the topics of the initiative behaviors of MNC¡¦s Taiwan Subsidiaries while intending to set up a new Subsidiary in China; the decisive factors of assigning the third country nationals (TCNs) for China Subsidiary and the role shifts of Taiwan Subsidiary upon of the time changes. This thesis indicates that because of the value activities in MNC¡¦s Taiwan Subsidiaries are mostly concentrated on production or operation, and do not take part in business related management thus they have few decision powers on initiating a China Subsidiary. Exceptions are for those Subsidiaries which have the top management with local nationality and/or with entrepreneurship might participate indirectly in decision making. Besides, MNC¡¦s Taiwan Subsidiaries mainly act as the task role in China project therefore, the depth of involvement depends on their capabilities and resources which have relation to the years of establishment. If other MNC¡¦s affiliates or regional headquarters are possessed of the needed capabilities and resources, they might also involve to a certain extent in China¡¦s investment.
The assignments of top team members for China project are influenced by the management style of MNCs. In most of cases, the top leading positions are filled by home country nationals of MNCs. But, for the functions of factory construction; operation or production the manager positions are commonly delegated to the experienced persons in Taiwan Subsidiaries. The main considerations are the technical capabilities, cultural background and common language. In respect of the role shifts of Taiwan Subsidiaries during the three developing stages i.e. construction, operation, and expansion of China Subsidiaries, our cases indicate that during the construction period, the main contributions of Taiwan Subsidiaries are to helping the personnel recruitments, providing technologies of factory construction and establishing the management systems; during the operation period, the contributions are to smoothing the daily production, optimizing the process, upgrading the quality of products; during the expansion period, the contributions are to enhancing the supply chain management, improving the productivity, introducing the new products or new manufacturing processes. This thesis concludes that, in line with the continuous growth of China Subsidiaries, the importance of Taiwan Subsidiaries might be dieing down, especially when there will be more and more experienced and capable human resources in China.
This thesis also indicates that, due to the product profiles of MNC¡¦s Subsidiaries in Taiwan and China have the high percentages of overlap thus the internal sales competition can be foreseen. However, our cases reveal that there is no fact of strong competition but most cooperation. The main reasons are that the business management is normally handled and coordinated by the separated organization of regional sales & marketing also, the current market demands are still big enough. Therefore, at the moment, two Subsidiaries of Taiwan and China are sitting in a balance or even in a complementary situation. However, if Taiwan¡¦s economic situation can not go abreast with that of China, it can be predicted the fadedness of Taiwan Subsidiaries in MNC¡¦s position. Only the individuals who with the high competencies can continuously play the important roles in MNC¡¦s Subsidiaries or possibly to be upgraded to the higher position in MNC¡¦s regional or global management teams.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0807103-112833
Date07 August 2003
CreatorsChen, Keng-Bing
ContributorsCher-Min Fong, Hsien-Tang Tsai, Cher-Hung Tseng
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0807103-112833
Rightsoff_campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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