Transfer Of Organizational Practices Research Articles

Power in the Process of Reversing Mission Drift in Hybrid Organizations: The Case of a French Multinational Worker Co-operative

Understanding how hybrid organizations resist mission drift and sustain the joint pursuit of their plural goals over time remains a central theoretical and practical concern in the business and society literature. In this article, we mobilize an organizational politics approach to elucidate how hybrid organizations react to mission drift and strive to rebalance the relationship between their conflicting missions. Drawing on an in-depth longitudinal analysis of a project developed within a multinational worker co-op to reverse mission drift, we elaborate a process model showing how shifting patterns in the mobilization of episodic and systemic forms of power provoke critical changes in the way that plural missions are construed and enacted within hybrid organizations. This study also contributes to the field of co-operative organization and management studies by revealing that the transfer of organizational practices within multinational co-ops is more critically shaped by power relations and conflicting interests rather than, as much of the previous literature has argued, by host country institutions.

MNE subsidiaries’ adoption of gender equality and women empowerment goal: A conceptual framework

This article explores the possible response types of multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries in adopting the gender equality and women empowerment goal, number 5 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). MNE headquarters’ commitment to gender equality does not necessarily get translated to their subsidiaries’ priority because of the strategic value the subsidiaries see and the legitimacy pressure they experience. Drawing on institutional theories and the literature on the transfer of organizational practices in MNEs, we propose a two-dimensional (value added to strategy and legitimacy pressure) framework describing four major types of subsidiary response – resistance, compliance, conformity and commitment. Understanding these response categories would help global agencies and host-country governments adjust their efforts to enhance local legitimacy for SDG adoption. Our simple typology could also facilitate scholarly and practical discussion. We end our discussion with some suggestions for future research.

The Transnational Transfer of HRM Practices in MNC: a Sociomaterial Framework

Current theories on the transnational transfer of organizational practices contributed to a shift in focus from cultural approaches to institutional and intra-organizational approaches, and from im...

Transferring codes of conduct within a multinational firm: The case of Lebanon

The transfer of organizational practices or management instruments in the multinational firm often requires adaptations to the local context of subsidiaries and is, as such, revealing cultural and ...

When a Japanese subsidiary is not a Japanese subsidiary: Internationalization as changing organizational identity and capabilities

As multinational corporations (MNCs) have increasingly expanded abroad to seek out new assets and capabilities from different specialized locations, so they have sought to become embedded in diverse local social and cultural contexts. Several streams of work have examined the managerial challenges of the integrated network MNC, as well as factors influencing the successful adoption or transfer of organizational practices within the MNC. In this work, however, the role and dynamics of organizational identity, of how the organization’s members and outside audiences perceive the organization, remain largely unexplored. In a longitudinal case study of the international expansion over a 15-year period of the business unit of a Japanese MNC into the United States, I find that the North American subsidiary’s members engaged in identity work to construct a hybrid identity for their organization. It was through this hybrid identity that the organization’s members enacted their environment, organizational capabilities at integrating knowledge, strategy, and structure. These, in turn, recursively interacted with the organization’s hybrid identity in complex ways, either reinforcing it or stressing it, leading to identity change and renewed efforts at identity construction by the organization’s members. The dynamics of the organization’s hybrid identity are different from how changes occur in these other constructs, with identity playing an influential, and perhaps the key role, in the evolution of the organization.

The role of teams, culture, and capacity in the transfer of organizational practices

PurposeTransferring organizational practices requires an understanding not only of what is being transferred but also of what is needed to ensure that the transfer is successful. In line with this thinking, the purpose of this study is to examine three factors that are crucial parts of this mechanism: use of teams, culture, and capacity.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a quantitative approach of a Fortune 500 company involved in energy supply. Data are gathered using survey methodology with items drawn from previous research. Hierarchical ordinary least squares are the methodology employed to analyze the data.FindingsThe study highlights how using teams, employing a collaborative culture, and possessing capacity after accounting for the control variables affected the knowledge transfer process and provides some insights into ways in which the process can be better managed.Research limitations/implicationsUsing this framework, it becomes problematic to separate individual and collective learning.Practical implicationsThe paper reinforces the idea that building a collaborative environment in which sharing and seeing knowledge as an organizational asset are essential to success.Originality/valueThe study reinforces the notion that individuals are being asked to make a major change in their approach to the management of knowledge: rather than as an individual asset to be exploited, it should be seen as an organizational asset. This requires that employees change the way they do things. Furthermore, knowledge is not an asset that can be easily discarded and replaced. As a consequence, organizations need to recognize that knowledge management can only be successful if a collaborative environment is created and the organization builds on what it already knows.

The transfer of organizational practices: a diachronic perspective from China

Extensive research has been undertaken on the transfer of organizational practices by multinational firms (e.g. Morgan, Kristensen and Whitley 2001; Ferner, Quintanilla, and Sánchez-Runde 2006). However, little investigation has assessed the role that time plays in this process. The commonplace theoretical assumption is that as their overseas subsidiaries become more embedded in the local environment they increasingly take on the practices that prevail locally (Rosenzweig and Nohria 1994; Farley, Hoenig and Yang 2004). There have, though, been few longitudinal studies that would allow the veracity of this assumption or its implications to be assessed; most studies provide one-off, synchronic ‘snapshots’ of organizations. Drawing upon research conducted at a UK-owned retail firm in China between 1999 and 2005, this paper provides a diachronic perspective that can trace emergent trends. Data are derived from mixed methods: 140 interviews with expatriate managers and local staff from all levels of the hierarchy, a three month period of ethnographic research and a total of 305 survey questionnaires. Comparison between findings from the more recent research and those based upon the earlier research suggests that time does play a role in affecting transplanted organizational practices. We report that in some respects the organizational practices of the firm in question increasingly took on more of the ‘colour’ of those that prevailed in the host environment. However, convergence with local practices was far from total, some practices bear increasing resemblance to the firm's parent country operation. We also caution that it is difficult to disentangle the isomorphic influence of the passage of time from factors such as the rapid withdrawal of expatriate managers from the operational level and the impact of the firm's rapid expansion across China. Moreover, we suggest that the local–global dichotomy, upon which much of the convergence–divergence debate rests, is perhaps increasingly problematic.