International human resource management strategies of Chinese multinationals operating abroad

Strategic international human resource management (SIHRM) is crucial for the effective leveraging of human resources in organizations to achieve the desired business strategies. There is a rich collection of studies on western multinational corporations (MNCs) in China, but few studies that explore the SIHRM of Chinese MNCs operating overseas. This study utilizes cross-level, in-depth interviews to analyse SIHRM of three large Chinese multinationals. The paper contributes to literature by addressing two contextual SIHRM issues, namely the characteristics of the SIHRM for Chinese multinationals and how their SIHRM orientation facilitates their international investment and operation. The findings indicate that organizational transformation is the starting point for latecomers matching their international HRM strategies. Their SIHRM approaches, such as forming learning organizations, reliance on host-country nationals, reconciling both home and host-country effects and promoting ‘best practices’, facilitate their international operations.     

Emerging market multinationals’ role in facilitating developed country multinationals’ regional expansion: A critical review of the literature and Turkish MNC examples

The recent expansion of emerging market multinationals into world markets has generated a rich literature. While this literature has addressed the potential motivations, behaviors, and strategic implications of these firms’ moves abroad, their possible role as facilitating agents in regional expansion has not been adequately explored. In this paper, we explore this question through a critical review of the literature and examples from Turkish multinationals. We also offer questions for future research.     

Managing MNC-Government Negotiations in Saudi Arabia: The Key Role of Elites

This article explores the relationships between multinational corporations (MNCs) and a host country, in this case Saudi Arabia (the Kingdom). The interests of Saudi businesses and the political elite, along with the evolution of their relationship are surveyed. Furthermore, the validity of traditional and two-tier models of bargaining between MNCs and developing countries are assessed in the context of the Kingdom. It is argued that while both models may be useful, the two fail to capture the nature of MNCs-Saudi Arabia bargaining process. These two models are revised and enriched to adequately reflect the Kingdom's specific advantage, the nature of its national firms, and the unique relations it has with MNCs and their home countries. The study concludes that under current global political and economic conditions, the elite and MNCs interests appear to converge around business objectives.     

我国企业发展战略联盟的动因

20世纪90年代以来,世界上最重要和最有影响力的跨国公司把发展企业联盟战略作为其生存与发展、提高国际竞争力的重要手段之一。面对加入世贸组织后的挑战,我国企业在跨国公司主导的经济全球化的浪潮中,如何参与和发展企业战略联盟,提高国际竞争力,使我国企业经营管理与国际管理惯例接轨,并按国际通行管理游戏规则办事至关重要。     

我国石油技术服务企业国际竞争力培育策略研究

依据波特"钻石体系"对产业竞争力关键因素的描述,结合石油技术服务产业的特殊性,总结了石油技术服务产业的竞争力特征,并基于此构建了石油技术服务企业国际竞争力要素模型。在对国内外石油技术服务企业综合实力主要指标对比研究的基础上,提出了现阶段培育国内石油技术服务企业国际竞争力的战略方向和策略选择。     

Terrorism as an external threat factor in global value chains

Global terrorism incidents and business‐related threats have intensified in scale and scope over the past 17 years. Multinational corporations are thus exposed to direct and indirect negative impacts on their international activities. Previous research lacks thorough theoretical frameworks to analyze these impacts. The global value chain (GVC) framework offers a perspective that is both comprehensive and quantifiable for the evaluation and expansion of this prior research. The GVC enables us to assess terrorism impacts on international business overall and at each stage of the value chain. On this basis, we develop a “terrorism resilience theory”) that can be used in future theoretical and managerial analyses of the response to terrorism risk.     

Measuring the diversification benefits of investing in highly internationalised firms

A vast literature exists investigating if Multinational Companies (MNCs) provide indirect international exposure to investors. These studies produce mixed results. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish between various types of MNCs, in particular firms that are consistently international versus firms that are in the process of internationalising. We provide a unique longitudinal dataset of firm-level multinationality of 396 Russell 1000 firms between 1996 and 2010, and estimate the diversification benefits of investing in these firms using mean variance spanning and Sharpe ratio tests. We find that the most consistently international firms provide the greatest diversification benefits. Rapidly internationalising firms provide little benefit, suggesting that the costs of rapid firm-level internationalisation are substantial. This distinction between firms at differing stages of internationalisation adds to the debate on the benefits of investing in MNCs and provides a possible explanation to the conflicting findings in the literature.     

Strategic ambidexterity and innovation in Chinese multinational vs. indigenous firms: The role of managerial capability

In this study, we challenge the conventional understanding of ambidexterity as an unquestionable contribution to better performance. We combine the concept of ambidexterity and the notion of managerial capability to explore different effects of ambidexterity on innovation performance in the context of emerging markets. We investigate this ambidexterity-innovation effect, and how this effect is moderated by managerial capability, on a sample of 74 Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) vs. 60 indigenous firms that are both in high technology industries. We find that, surprisingly, ambidexterity has a negative effect on the innovation performance of indigenous firms, although this effect is less so in the case of Chinese MNEs. More importantly, strong managerial capability increases the positive effect of ambidexterity on the innovation performance of Chinese MNEs, but not so for indigenous firms. We discuss the implications of these findings on research on ambidexterity and product innovation.     

Subsidiary goals,learning orientations,and ownership strategies of multinational enterprises: evidence from foreign direct investments in Korea

This paper investigates the links among subsidiary goals, learning orientations, and ownership strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The authors hypothesize that an MNE's ownership strategy is determined by subsidiary goals and learning orientations. Furthermore, interactions between learning orientations and subsidiary goals are predicted to influence the ownership strategy. Based on 723 foreign subsidiaries of MNEs operating in Korea, our findings suggest that when MNE foreign subsidiaries influence ownership choice, market-seeking goals and resource-seeking goals have a stronger fit with the exploitation orientation than with the exploration orientation. In contrast, the category of knowledge-seeking goals has a stronger fit with exploration than with exploitation.     

Foreign ownership and the export and import propensities of developing‐country firms

This paper uses micro‐data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys 2002–06 to investigate how foreign ownership affects the likelihood of manufacturers in developing countries to export and/or import either directly or indirectly. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences across firms in terms of labour productivity and other characteristics, we find that foreign ownership raises the propensity of a firm to export by over 17 and the propensity to import by more than 13 percentage points. The effects are even bigger for countries with the lowest per capita income and institutional quality.     

跨国公司在中国的研发活动

近年来,跨国公司加强了在中国的研发投资。跨国公司在华研发活动的增长性、集中性、合作性、控制性,促进了我国高科技产业的发展,增加了“技术溢出”效应,搭建了人才培养的平台,在此基础上,应从政策方面支持跨国公司在华的研发活动,引导我国企业采取科学的管理理念和模式,推动企业国际化的步伐,加强我国企业自身研发能力建设。     

Strategic capabilities and the emergence of the global factory: Omron in China

Omron Shanghai provides a detailed case study of a multinational subsidiary's long-term evolution. The study assesses three streams of international business literature that emphasize the seemingly competing roles of parent firm strategy, national institutions or local management in the development of subsidiaries. It looks at each business function separately to reveal which capabilities were effectively transferred from Japan to China. In tracing Omron Shanghai's development from international joint venture into wholly owned enterprise and then global factory, it is the strategic intent of the parent multinational corporations that emerges as the consistent formative influence on management practices and capabilities.     

The role of business support organisations in the process of retailer internationalisation

In the field of international retail research, there has been little attention paid to the role of business support organisations in the process of internationalisation. Given the barriers to foreign market expansion, the focus of this study is to investigate the importance of facilitating factors, in the form of business support organisations, which can assist retailers in the process of international expansion. A qualitative research methodology was employed and the findings provide evidence relating to three important areas: firstly, the types of business support programmes available to retailers seeking to internationalise from the UK, secondly, the barriers encountered by retail companies expanding overseas, and thirdly, how government and private organisations can assist in helping retailers overcome these hurdles.     

跨国公司贸易对国际收支的影响

与国际收支概念产生时期的世界贸易环境相比较,目前的世界贸易环境已经发生了天翻地覆的变化,跨国公司贸易对“经济体”国际收支产生着重要影响,这种影响不仅体现在国际收支项目上,而且使按原产地规则统计的国际收支的意义发生了很大变异。     

Emerging economies and institutional quality: Assessing the differential effects of institutional distances on ownership strategy

The current study contributes to the institution-based view of internationalization that is contingent upon the home country development. We examine the differential effects of formal and informal institutions on emerging market multinational corporations’ (EMNCs) ownership strategies. Facing a large informal institutional distance that represents diverse cultural beliefs, EMNCs opt for a low ownership position that alleviates legitimacy threat, whereas a large formal institutional distance leads EMNCs to establish dominant ownership control. EMNC home market conditions, including market size and regulatory institutional quality, further explain the differential effects of institutional distances.     

Institutional and corporate drivers of global talent management: Evidence from the Arab Gulf region

This study analyses how talent management (TM) is molded by institutional and corporate drivers. We borrow from the vast institutional literature to understand how organizations adopt and implement TM practices within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) context. This context is valuable not only because it tackles an under-researched region, but also because the type of variables found further our understanding of TM processes in non-Western contexts. Companies abide by localization rules to sustain their “legal” legitimacy, while trying to improve efficiency through actions that enhance their economic sustainability. Companies try to strike a strategic balance between local adaptation and global assimilation of their TM processes. We conclude by presenting a framework that portrays how various forces impact the TM process.     

我国装备制造业创新管理模式的战略路径

由于信息技术的推动,国际制造业发生了重大变化：由实体制造向“虚拟制造”转变、由完全制造向网络化总装制造转化、由本地制造向转移制造转化、由封闭型技术研究向全球化合作研究转化。尽管我国装备制造业的总体运行态势较好,但是行业内各企业发展不均衡、亏损现象较为严重、企业集中度低、集群效益不明显,并且自主技术创新能力十分薄弱。因此应从以下方面创新我国装备制造业的管理模式：在产品管理上实行标准化；在管理手段方面实现完全信息化；技术创新自主化和创新主体企业化；在区域管理方面,建立富含动态能力的区域创新网络并实现集群化。     

跨国公司生产组织变革、技术外溢与我国加工贸易的升级

本文探讨了跨国公司国际生产组织的变革以及与这种变革相适应的国际生产网络中的技术外溢机制与加工贸易升级之间的关系。为了与产品内分工相适应,跨国公司调整其国际生产组织方式,形成了国际生产网络。以跨国公司为主导的国际生产网络中的技术外溢为我国加工企业提升生产能力带来了良机,对我国加工贸易升级具有重要意义。我国的加工贸易企业既要积极参与到国际生产网络之中,又要主动学习和吸收高层级主体向其溢出的先进技术和知识。     

Strategic Implications of Alliances and Other Linkages of Leading Telecom Operators in Brazil: Network and International Perspectives

In response to competitive pressures created by privatization, telecom firms in developing countries are establishing alliances and other types of linkages—mergers and acquisitions—with foreign partners to ensure customer competitive advantages in global markets. However, there have been very few studies on the alliances of telecom operators in Brazil, an increasingly important BRIC. This article presents the results of research that aimed to fill this gap by identifying, from a network/international perspective, the opportunities/threats created by the relevant linkages of leading telecom operators in Brazil. The results suggest that acquisitions—and especially alliance-type linkages with foreign partners—have created opportunities for boosting performance, in keeping with their new strategic profile.