Relationships Between Foreign Subsidiaries

Julia Maurer offers the first comprehensive conceptual and empirical approach to the relationships between foreign subsidiaries. She develops a novel framework for the analysis of intersubsidiary relationships and applies it to the large-scale plant engineering industry. The empirical study confirms that an MNC`s strategic orientation has a considerable impact on its intersubsidiary relationships.

In this thesis, a model for explaining the relationships between market orientation, perceived uncertainty and business performance is developed and tested in the context of foreign invested subsidiaries in China. The expected significant positive relationships and to some extent mediation effects were confirmed. However, it seems that market orientation in practice is not sufficiently implemented as an instrument to reduce uncertainty, establish shared interpretation, facilitate decision-making and to drive performance. Although the suggested 3D perceived uncertainty model is applicable, scale refinement seems necessary. The MARKOR scale for testing market orientation needs improvement.

Katharina Kretschmer contributes to the role typology research stream in international business. The book is highly relevant for management practice. Deep insights into the implications of subsidiary roles are displayed, and it is shown that role-specific subsidiary management is possible if not necessary. In the future, MNC managers could benefit even more when, instead of treating all their subsidiaries alike, approaching them differently – especially when evaluating their performance.

This book was first published in 2011. The current financial and economic crisis has negatively underlined the vital role of multinational companies (MNCs) in our daily lives. The breakdown and crisis of flagship MNCs, such as Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Toyota and General Motors, does not merely reveal the problems of corporate malfeasance and market dysfunction. It also raises important questions, both for the public and the academic community, about the use and misuse of power by MNCs in the wider society, as well as the exercise of power by key actors within internationally operating firms. This book examines how issues of power and politics affect MNCs at three different levels; the macro-level, the meso-level and the micro-level. This wide-ranging analysis shows not only that power matters but also how and why it matters, pointing to the political interactions of key power holders and actors within the MNC, both managers and employees.