Japanese-style management and Japanese companies have been popular targets of management studies since the 1970s. Many studies have been devoted to the examination of Japanese companies in Japan. By comparison, less understanding has been achieved about how Japanese companies conduct business in their international operations and how famous Japanese management has been transferred to Japanese subsidiaries. This thesis contributes to an ongoing academic debate about the internationalization processes within Japanese multinational companies.
The processes involved in interaction between the parent company and subsidiaries address the research question of how subsidiaries of Japanese multinational firms perceive the relationship with their parent companies. The parent-subsidiary relationship is conceptualized within the boundaries of communication and information exchange theory. The conceptual framework creates a tool for research inquiry into the parent-subsidiary relationship. The framework conceptualizes the relationship between facilitating factors and perceived parental influence. Access to the parent company, motivation to engage with the parent company, and ability to engage with the parent company are conceptualized as factors facilitating the parent-subsidiary relationship. National/country and organizational/industry characteristics are identified as attributes moderating the relationship. Information outflow, inflow, and intraflow are derived components of the parental influence.
The study presented here is exploratory with findings based on two sequential comparative research stages. The Czech Republic and New Zealand, although different in terms of national and country characteristics, are argued as a suitable comparable base for conducting research within subsidiaries ofJapanese firms. In stage one, 18 Czech and 17 New Zealand subsidiaries of Japanese companies participated in a questionnaire survey. In stage two, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted for case studies within Czech and New Zealand subsidiaries of six Japanese parent companies. The case studies provided further insights into the subsidiary-parent relationship.
This research seeks contribution to the internationalization literature by offering a new useful framework for the examination of the parent-subsidiary link. The self-identity of Japanese subsidiaries was found to give meaning to the parental relationship as perceived by the subsidiary. This relationship was influenced by the subsidiary�s country location, the industry in which the subsidiary operates, and the presence of expatriate management in the subsidiary. This research also found significant commonalities among the perceptions of parental influence in all Japanese subsidiaries involved in the study. The observed commonalities indicate that Japanese companies might have moved away from the internationalization processes ascribed to them by previous academic research. The change triggered by collapse of stock markets in mid-1990s has resulted to a recent reduction of expatriate staff reported little parental guidance, independence, and the strong self-identification of subsidiaries with their local environment.
Keywords Internationalization, Japanese Multinational Company, Subsidiary, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Information, Parent-Subsidiary Relationship
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217803 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Strach, Pavel, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Management, Department of Marketing |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Pavel Strach |
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