Subsidiary roles as determinants of subsidiary technology sourcing: empirical evidence from China

What determines MNC subsidiary performance? Evidence from China

The paper challenges the view that MNC dictates a subsidiary’s business strategy and operations in accordance with the integration-responsiveness (IR) framework. The paper integrates the IR framework with contingency theory to argue that a subsidiary needs discretion to craft its own effective business strategy in light of the environmental exigencies facing the subsidiary in the host country. ...

Knowledge flows in MNCs: An empirical test and extension of Gupta & Govindarajan’s typology of subsidiary roles

This study offers an empirical test and extension of Gupta & Govindarajan’s typology of subsidiary roles based on knowledge inflows and outflows. A four-fold typology of subsidiary roles – global innovators, integrated players, implementors and local innovators – is tested using a sample of 169 subsidiaries of MNCs headquartered in the US, Japan, UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Results...

Expatriate Knowledge Transfer, Subsidiary Absorptive Capacity, and Subsidiary Performance

In this study, we theoretically identify three dimensions of expatriate competenciesability, motivation, and opportunity seeking—for knowledge transfer. Integrating the ability-motivation-opportunity framework and the absorptive capacity perspective, we propose that expatriate competencies in knowledge transfer influence a subsidiary's performance through the knowledge received by the subsidiar...

Subsidiary Types, Activities, and Location: an Empirical Investigation

Determining Factors of Subsidiary Development

Subsidiary development is a multi-dimensional construct that cannot be captured just by looking at subsidiary roles, activities, etc. Three distinct dimensions of subsidiary development are identified and these are: scope of subsidiary (the breadth of activities), level of subsidiary competence (the depth of activities) and level of integration in the internal MNC-network. Birkinshaw and Hood (...