A Case Study on the Evolution of HQ-Subsidiary Relationship of a Multinational Corporation in the Emerging Economy

• Main Authors: Shu-Ling Chen, 陳淑玲
• Other Authors: Ji-Ren Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07010725026806410268

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國際企業學研究所 === 96 === Taking a multinational corporation and her six subsidiaries as empirical context, the present research endeavor to explore how and why the parent firm employed various different coordination and control models to manage her subsidiaries which were heterogeneous in their founding background, role, task, and capability. Undertaking a qualitative approach, this research attempts to further explore how the parent firm’s management approach would affect the performance of different subsidiaries. By identifying factors leading toward subsidiary’s success and failure, we hope to provide normative suggestions to Taiwanese companies who have strategic intent to excel in the global arena. Through a case-base exploration, we found that strategic intent in exploring opportunities in the foreign markets drove the focal firm to aggressively establish overseas subsidiaries. However, such a vision and intent did not get across all levels of management in the organization. Therefore, the implementation of overseas units were by and large opportunistic and non-systematic. Detailed operational plan and organizational supports were lacking. Corporate parent tended to underake simplifed control rules to ease administrative loading. Operational synergies due to possession of a diverfieid resource network was failed to be created. With almost twenty years of international development, the focal firm did not come up with an effective model to resolve the conflicts due to increasing product complexity, channel diversity, marketing strategy difference, and heterogeneous needs of technical supports, which situations in turn lead to poor subsidiary performance. Based on the insights suggested by Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989), I propose a framework of decision considerations for the focal firm which is able to encompass the need for differential local responsiveness and that for global integration. Implications and strategy suggestions based on this framework to the focal firm and practitioners are also discussed.