| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 國際企業學系 === 95 === In the past, studies on “multinational corporations” were mostly understood on the parent-subsidiary links. As the competitive environment change subsidiaries’ autonomy increased the focus of research on international business has shifted from the perspective of “parent-subsidiary” to the perspective of “intra-network”. For a multinational corporation, the exchange and transfer of knowledge through the “intra-network” can not only advance technical development but strengthen corporate competitive advantage.
However, past studies about knowledge transfer of MNCs’ intra-network have been made on the influence factors of effective knowledge transfer. What seems to be lacking, is a systematic framework to capture knowledge transfer among subsidiaries. As a result, we consider the issue of subsidiary characteristics and MNC’s knowledge transfer is worthy to study. In this study, our research sample is a “multinational corporation” located in Germany. This corporation is presently a world leading company in machinery supply. From the perspective of organization theory, an exploratory study approach was used to find out the relationship between subsidiary characteristics and knowledge transfer modes. In the end of the study, we could propose several propositions for future research.
In our study, according to the research results and discussions, we proposed several propositions including the similarity in technological capability among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge socialization, the similarity in strategic roles among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge socialization, the difference in organizational culture among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge internalization, the similarity in strategic roles among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge internalization, the difference in organizational structure among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge internalization, the similarity in technological capability among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge combination, the similarity in technological capability among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge externalization, the similarity in strategic roles among subsidiaries is beneficial for knowledge externalization. From the results and discussions of our study, we understand that relationships between the similarity in subsidiary characteristics and knowledge transfer exist indeed. Furthermore, the results of our study not only fill up the lack of past literature but also increase the profundity of the issue of MNC’s knowledge transfer.
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