Chinese parent firm’s knowledge types and governance modes’ effect on overseas subsidiaries’ performance: a contingency perspective

Purpose Based on an ensemble sample of multinational enterprises (MNEs), this study aims to explore the effect of the interactions between Chinese parent firms’ knowledge (including both technological and marketing knowledge), equity control and cultural distance on the business performance of their overseas branches under different subsidiary roles. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a data set compiled from 138 listed Chinese manufacturing enterprises and their 231 overseas subsidiaries to test the hypotheses regarding the interactive effects of transferred knowledge types and the subsidiary’s control mode. Findings The empirical results suggest that the moderating effects of equity control and cultural distance vary with the types of the parent firm’s knowledge and subsidiary roles. Specifically, equity control positively regulates the relationship between technological knowledge and subsidiary performance while negatively moderating the relationship between marketing knowledge and subsidiary performance. Cultural distance appears to negatively regulate the relationship between marketing knowledge and subsidiary performance. This binary relationship is shown to be more significant for the implementer subsidiaries. Originality/value Drawing on the literature on inter-firm governance and knowledge-induced innovation mechanisms, the authors develop a theoretical contingency framework to derive some managerial implications for inter-firm and infra-firm knowledge transfer in light of MNEs’ performance integrity.

Turning a mundane ceremony into a meaningful organizational ritual: some suggestions for the redesign of ribbon-cutting ceremonies

Purpose This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new overseas subsidiaries and demonstrates the possibility of modifying such ceremonies to place greater emphasis on intra-organizational communications. Design/methodology/approach This is a careful study of 200 videos on 73 ribbon-cutting ceremonies in Russia between 2012 and 2018. Findings Under the current prevalent design, ribbon-cutting ceremonies mostly entail inter-organizational communication, i.e. communication between foreign investors and representatives of the authorities of the host country. Meanwhile, in addition to the standard ribbon-cutting ceremonies, it is observed that several videos on intra-organizational communication, i.e. pseudoformal meetings between the team from the corporate headquarters and employees of a newly built factory. During such meetings, top corporate executives express the importance of the factory vis-à-vis the future of the whole corporation, state their expectations for the further development of the factory’s production facilities, postulate the desired working atmosphere in the factory and appeal for the commitment and assistance of the employees in safeguarding the future of the investment. Originality/value The findings provide a basis for a broader discussion on the role of ribbon-cutting ceremonies as staged large-scale events organized by firms to articulate, highlight, disseminate, rationalize, as well as mobilize internal and external support for their strategy.

Work design expectations of Japanese MNCs’ local managers in English-speaking and Far East cultural clusters – USA, Thailand and India

PurposeThe importance of work design to organizational engagement and firm performance is increasingly recognized in management scholarship. For international business, a majority of variation in work design based on national cultures is addressed through cross-cultural management scholarship. However, there is a paucity of qualitative research on the influences international business human resource managers face for work design in the intercultural environment of overseas subsidiaries. The purpose of this interpretivist study was to examine the lived experience of overseas subsidiaries’ local managers to surface a more nuanced understanding of their expectations and related implications for work.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical research was conducted through semistructured in-depth interviews with senior managers of subsidiaries of Japanese MNCs in USA, Thailand and India.FindingsThe findings of the study develop and extend on prior cross-cultural management scholarship on world cultural clusters revealing changed expectations of work in intercultural work environments as instantiated by Japanese MNCs.Social implicationsThrough engaging work design, international businesses can contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8 that pertains to decent work.Originality/valueThe study adds to extant understanding of the work design antecedent to engagement by broadening to intercultural environment impacts understanding facilitated by empirical lived experience data and suggesting a modification to extant theory. This study pioneers in taking world cultural clusters as the field for evaluating data.