Entre efficience, réactivité et apprentissage organisationnel - une étude qualitative sur le cas des filiales françaises en Chine

Abstract

On the basis of a series of twelve qualitative interviews with expatriated managers of French subsidiaries in China, we examine how coordination and control mechanisms implemented by multinationals can be associated in order to reconcile, on the one hand, efficiency and, on the other hand, responsiveness and organisational learning, both necessary in a particularly dynamic and complex Chinese context. All the companies of our sample have developed a sophisticated formal control of their subsidiaries in China. But instead of rigidifying the organisation of the subsidiaries, as one might fear, this strong formal control becomes the catalyst for intense dialogues between the multinational, the Chinese subsidiaries and other units of the multinational, in China and elsewhere, reinforcing the subsidiaries' aptitudes for responsiveness and organisational learning. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]