Search results

The purpose of this study is to explore if and how companies strive for a harmonization of management accounting systems in their international business units to support company-wide consistent strategy implementation and to analyze the underlying drivers and pitfalls. Our paper is motivated by the tension between the need for consistent strategy implementation in the different international business units of multinational companies and the traditional differences in management accounting practices across countries.

The field study comprised semi-structured in-depth interviews with management accounting experts in selected German and Spanish business units of 15 major German multinational companies.

The authors identified strong efforts for company-wide harmonization of management accounting practices and found that beside explicit initiatives set by corporate headquarters, more implicit pressures such as the education of management accountants, the work of global consultancies and the use of standardized ERP-systems constitute strong drivers of the identified harmonization.

The findings highlight implicit pressures as important drivers of the harmonization of management accounting systems in the international business units of multinational companies. Taking these implicit pressures into consideration can help multinational companies striving for a harmonization of business unit management accounting for consistent strategy implementation.

Building on a unique sample of pairs of German and Spanish business units of 15 major German companies, the field study explores harmonization practices and its drivers in multinational companies.

Based on a representative survey of German subsidiaries in the UK, their parent companies and a comparative analysis to the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998, the article examines the impact of nationality of ownership on employee relations (ER) in German multinational companies (MNCs) operating in an Anglo‐Saxon setting. It also assesses whether in light of heightened international competition and the problems in the German ER model, there has been a weakening of the home country effect over time. The study finds little evidence of a home country effect in relation to ER structures but reveals a pronounced country‐of‐origin effect in the ER approach and style. There is also evidence that German MNCs have responded to the globalisation pressures of the 1990s by a heightened emphasis on the country‐of‐origin collective approach in their UK subsidiaries, whilst at the same time developing comprehensive direct human resource management employee involvement schemes to complement, rather than substitute collective ER.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific difficulties that senior managers face when employing expatriate, Chinese and local‐hired foreign managers in China‐based subsidiaries of Western multinational companies (MNCs). Furthermore, it aims to examine the resultant coping strategies to overcome identified weaknesses.

This research adopts a qualitative approach, using semi‐structured interviews with key‐informants from senior management in 44 Australian and German companies operating in China.

The study identified specific difficulties associated with the employment of expatriate, local Chinese, and local‐hired foreign managers in Australian and German subsidiaries in China. The interviewees indicate a widespread intention to replace expatriate managers with Chinese managers and local‐hired foreign managers. The striving for localization of staffing is more pronounced in German than Australian MNCs. German companies offer more comprehensive development activities for the Chinese talent than Australian companies.

The small number of participants and the restriction to one key informant per company limit the generalizability of the findings. The effects of different staffing options still need to be researched in longitudinal studies and in varied contexts.

Localization of staff suggests the need for specific, culture‐sensitive approaches to personnel development. The findings also suggest that the knowledge transfer between expatriate and local managers deserves more attention. Finally, the return on investment that companies receive from differing staffing options should be assessed using a multidimensional set of success criteria.

This paper has two main contributions to existing research. First, it links academic discussion about the options of international staffing with the experience of practitioners from Western MNCs operating in China. Second, it provides further support for the existence of country‐of‐origin effects in international staffing.

Based on interviews conducted with senior managers of four German multinationals, discusses issues of technology management in the context of global manufacturing. An overview of the four companies and their competitive priorities is first presented. Then discusses the role of globalisation and issues relating to technology transfer and technology management. Based on observations, identifies three common strategies/practices adopted by the companies studied, namely maintaining focus on core competencies/technological capabilities; maintaining a continuing dialogue between the R&D function at headquarters and the overseas operating units; and providing extensive education and training for all employees.

Upon entering developed markets, emerging market multinational corporations (EMNCs) from China and India must compete with both host companies and other developed nation MNCs to attract and recruit necessary local talent. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent EMNC firms will be perceived as less attractive employers than their developed nation counterparts due to a perceived liability of origin bias. Major demographic and psychographic factors that may affect this bias will also be identified.

Seven hypotheses were tested on a total of 626 German, French and American respondents. Participants were randomly presented identical job descriptions from four hypothetical MNCs (American, European, Indian and Chinese) and were asked to evaluate the perceived attractiveness of working for, as well as their intent to pursue employment with, the offering firm.

Using hierarchical linear regression testing, combined with analysis of variance testing, EMNCs were found to have significantly lower organizational attractiveness than equivalent European or American owned MNCs. Mixed results were found for the various hypotheses based on the moderator variables.

Because the study included three distinct sub-groups, supplemental analyses controlling for possible variances between the sub-groups themselves are included. This multicultural study is one of the first to address the human perspective of EMNC outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by identifying the existence of a potential liability of origin bias toward emerging market firms manifested by potential developed market job applicants. Furthermore, this study is one of the first to examine the influence of applicant age, professional status, gender and nationality with respect to the differences in the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.

This paper extends the literature in three important research areas. First, an extension to the literature on the highly relevant topic of OFDI by Chinese and Indian firms is made. Second, traditional research in the field of organizational attractiveness is further extended by combining it with the timely subject of Chinese and Indian OFDI into developed markets. Finally, this study extends international business literature by studying the influence of demographic and psychographic moderators on the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.

Researchers still debate the relevance of using cultural frameworks and socio‐economic differences between countries versus focussing on institutional differences when analysing issues affecting the transfer of Human Resource policies between countries. This paper first compares four countries from Europe and Asia on a macroeconomic level as well as on cultural dimensions. It then investigates perceived cultural differences between managers on the transfer of human resource policies by contrasting the perceptions of German headquarters managers with those of their subsidiary managers in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. This exploratory study uses qualitative methodology to analyse twenty four in‐depth interviews with Human Resource directors and line managers in German electrical, mechanical and chemical companies. The study confirms the importance of perceived cultural differences between managers at headquarters and in the subsidiaries and highlights the presence of misperceptions based on overgeneralisations emanating from the German headquarters as well as local subsidiaries. Convergence is confirmed on a HR policy level with crossvergence taking place on a process level via regional platforms. The growing role of the subsidiary HR director as a cultural translator and regional team player is found to be a key element in the transfer process.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how multinational enterprises have historically managed global patenting and to what extent the localization of patent management has supported the expansion of these enterprises. This study focuses on the electric appliance industry (one of the first industries to see the emergence of global companies) and consider the case of Siemens, a German multinational company, comparing it to General Electric (GE), an American company.

The work adopts a global business history approach. Taking GE’s global patent-management model, described by Nishimura (2004, 2009, 2016), as the benchmark, this study analyzed Siemens’ worldwide control of its intellectual property rights between 1890 and Second World War, using German, Japanese and American primary sources.

Patent management is a common means for firms to globalize and transfer technology internationally, but it can take various forms. While GE transferred patent management to its foreign subsidiaries (a process known as localization), Siemens kept worldwide patent management at its headquarters – except in Japan, where in time it transferred this activity to a joint venture. The transfer of production called for localization of patent management while focusing on exporting to other markets made it possible to keep patent management at headquarters.

Patents are usually a source for quantitative surveys. This paper uses them to discuss how multinational companies manage property rights globally. It is the first paper to address this issue by comparing two major actors in a similar industry.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in‐depth description of the process of institutionalisation and development of human resource management (HRM) practices in subsidiaries of German multinational companies in Russia.

The study is based on nine case studies of Russian subsidiaries including 26 interviews (13 German expatriates and 13 local employees), participative observations and document analyses. The data analysis follows a qualitative methodology.

The study provides four patterns of institutionalisation processes of HRM practices. They stress the importance of personal, institutional and contextual factors for the institutionalisation of HRM practices. Moreover, the key role of expatriates with their specific value orientations and behaviour in this process is highlighted.

One suggestion for further research would be to replicate the study quantitatively (in order to get more cases) as well as qualitatively (to get broader inter‐cultural data). Furthermore, it would be valuable to take a more long‐term focus to examine the described institutionalisation paths in the long run.

The paper highlights the importance of personal characteristics of expatriates that are often underestimated in companies' selection procedures. Moreover, the connection between the parent company's strategy and the pattern of institutionalisation of HRM practices should make the company management reflect upon the preferred pattern before taking the basic decisions. Taking into account the strong economic relationship between Russia and Germany and the expected further development of joint activities, the paper provides also important insights for the use of German expatriates in Russia.

This paper improves our comprehension of the complex process of implementation and institutionalisation of HRM practices abroad. Moreover, it contributes to the HRM literature as it employs the concept of “transnational spaces” as an alternative and additional approach to explain this process. The resulting patterns may not be restricted to the Russian case only but should be adaptable to other emerging countries as well.

This paper aims to investigate how and why German cost accounting prevails and develops in German multinational organisations despite the various indications in the literature that it will converge towards an anglophone system over time. To analyse this, the authors draw on the ideas of professional practices (Jarzabkowski et al., 2016) and their path dependency (Schreyögg and Sydow, 2011) as a method theory.

The authors deploy an exploratory method using multiple case studies to determine similarities and differences between organisations concerning how cost accounting practices developed over time. They conducted interviews with cost accountants, group controllers and managers of German multinational organisations as well as experts from higher education institutions and consultancies.

This paper shows the path-dependent development of German cost accounting. It identifies self-reinforcing learning and complementary effects that seem to make it inefficient for organisations to deviate from the learned path as well as economic and normative pressures that affect the design of cost accounting systems.

By considering German cost accounting a path-dependent professional practice, this paper illustrates how and why the core of German cost accounting prevails, although organisations make adjustments within the existing structures to respond to the pressures they face. This paper hereby highlights the role of cost accountants in defining (and consequently bringing about or preventing changes to) the design of cost accounting systems.

Numerous studies have proliferated on the salient role of the subsidiary in multinational enterprise learning and innovative capability building. However, this role has not been considered outside the structural properties of the transnational or integrated network configuration. This paper aims to highlight the role of agency in learning beyond effective configurations.

The research is based on case studies that systematically compare the ways in which parent company knowledge embedded in a transnational and an international structure is transferred to subsidiaries in the European chemical industry.

The paper demonstrates that an international structure can also promote higher levels of learning, despite the absence of learning‐facilitating structural properties, when subsidiaries' orientation to enact acquired knowledge or their “effortful accomplishments” are considered.

The findings point to the significance of agency or adaptation to contexts that require either idiosyncratic or ongoing changes, where structural properties of a multinational enterprise are not conducive to higher levels of learning. In the absence of these structural properties, employees need to be guided to change their recognisable pattern of interdependent actions.

The learning implications of Bartlett and Ghoshal's MNE structures are fine‐tuned with the conceptualization of learning as practice. By adopting an agency‐based understanding of learning, the two aspects of learning are reconciled, i.e. knowledge transfer and the actor's orientation to acquired knowledge for a more refined understanding of the concept within the MNE context.