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This paper aims to investigate three different orientations of recruitment (profession-sensitive, language-sensitive and interculture-sensitive recruitment) and their effect on the foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs).

This study examines the relationship among three different orientations of recruitment and knowledge transfer from parent firms to foreign subsidiaries. Data are collected from local managers in MNCs’ subsidiaries operating in Japan using a questionnaire. The hypotheses are tested by using ordinary least squares resression (OLS).

The results of this study indicate that each of the three orientations of recruitment positively influences the knowledge transfer of MNCs. In particular, the positive effect of profession-sensitive recruitment is enhanced when foreign subsidiaries are established through acquisition. The positive effect of interculture-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer is also strengthened by offering professional training.

This study is subject to several limitations. The sample size is small, and the data were collected from a single country. In addition, the respondents’ positions in an organizational hierarchy have not been taken into account. Despite these limitations, this study can be considered the first step toward future research on the relationship between different orientations of recruitment and intra-organizational knowledge transfer.

The results of this study indicate that not only profession-sensitive recruitment but also language-sensitive and interculture-sensitive recruitment are important for intra-organizational knowledge sharing. This study suggests that local employees with intercultural competence have the potential to improve subsidiary performance through knowledge sharing with parent firms if they are provided with professional training.

This study has empirically examined the complex mechanism of the three important factors (professional, language and intercultural competence) in recruitment and their influence on knowledge transfer. In particular, this study emphasizes language-sensitive recruitment and interculture-sensitive recruitment, which have received less attention than profession-sensitive recruitment in international business research. Moreover, this study focuses on the relationship between recruitment and knowledge sharing in a cross-border setting, which few studies in the human resource management area have examined.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how professional service firms (PSFs) manage the linguistic tensions between global Englishization and local multilingualism. It achieves this by analysing the work of Big Four audit firms in Luxembourg, where three official languages co-exist: Luxembourgish, French, and German. In addition, expatriates bring with them their native languages in a corporate environment that uses English as its lingua franca.

The paper combines the institutionalist sociology of the professions with theoretical concepts from sociolinguistics to study the multifaceted role of language in PSFs. Empirically, the paper draws from 25 interviews with current and former audit professionals.

The client orientation of the Big Four segments each firm into language teams based on the client’s language. It is thus the client languages, rather than English as the corporate language, that mediate, define, and structure intra- and inter-organizational relationships. While the firms emphasize the benefits of their linguistic adaptability, the paper reveals tensions along language lines, suggesting that language can be a means of creating cohesion and division within the firms.

This paper connects research on PSFs with that on the role of language in multinational organizations. In light of the Big Four’s increasingly global workforce, it draws attention to the linguistic divisions within the firms that question the existence of a singular corporate culture. While prior literature has centred on firms’ global–local divide, the paper shows that even single branches of such firm networks are not monolithic constructs, as conflicts and clashes unfold amid a series of “local–local” divides.

This paper is the third in a series that will examine the management of innovation by multidisciplinary patient care teams in palliative care in Australia and reports on the existence and use of organisational levers to enable and influence required characteristic behaviours in the teams. These levers work in concert with organisational capabilities to resource the required behaviours. Interviews with management teams in three Australian palliative care case study organisations confirm the existence and use of organisational levers. It appears that levers are available organisationally and utilised where necessary but fall into three distinct groups, those utilised by any person or group needing them, those utilised more specifically by management teams and those utilised by multidisciplinary patient care teams. It is noted that these groups are dependent on the existence of the levers for the optimisation of their efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how translation activities influence knowledge transfer across cultures in Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs). Although translation is recognized as a critical instrument for MNEs to enhance cross-national knowledge flow, scholars have not put much emphasis on the importance of translation in international business research.

This paper proposes a novel hierarchical framework to delineate the five major boundary-spanning functions regarding translation for knowledge transfer in China (i.e. exchanging, linking, manipulating, facilitating and intervening). Due to the paucity of relevant literature, the authors used exploratory case studies investigating two large Chinese MNEs to illustrate how individuals as boundary spanners handle the translation requirements associated with cross-cultural knowledge transmission within a MNE’s business network. The data coding approach was used to examine the assumed model.

The findings demonstrate that translators indeed play a vital role in cross-border knowledge exchanging, linking people with crucial knowledge, manipulating the flow of knowledge for protecting confidentiality, facilitating the cross-cultural interaction of various knowledge sources and intervening to prevent the occurrence of misunderstanding in MNE contexts. The authors also reveal how translators overcome the three constraints of language interpretation concerning knowledge transfer (i.e. lack of equivalence, cultural interference and ambiguity). The proposed research framework was fully supported.

The results provide insightful implications for MNEs to treat translation as a significant “re-codification” rather than a mundane task. Knowledge transfer within MNEs involves not only knowledge regarding products, technology and operations but also involves “whole organizations” including business models, organizational visions, missions and strategies.

The main value of this paper is to propose a novel model regarding the role of translation in cross-cultural knowledge transfer in China. Language is a container of contexts; the translation procedure in MNEs is actually dynamic and contingent in nature and can be seen as an act of knowledge creation per se.

This paper aims to focus on knowledge transfer between the headquarters and a subsidiary of a multinational corporation (MNC). A framework with type of knowledge, absorptive capacity, disseminative capacity and tie strength is proposed. The framework is verified qualitatively and then further developed by adding another capacity needed by the headquarters: heeding capacity.

To check the validity of the proposed conceptual framework empirically, interview-based qualitative studies were conducted for two partner programs implemented in the Japanese subsidiary of a US-based IT company. Interviews were undertaken with 17 respondents in the headquarters, the Japanese subsidiary and two alliance partners in Japan.

It is confirmed that type of knowledge and absorptive capacity clearly affect the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. Also, it is found that the knowledge sender’s disseminative capacity matters. Additionally, a case is found in which network ties mitigate the ineffectiveness caused by low disseminative/absorptive capacity.

In this research, cultural influences have not been considered. Also, this research has not paid attention to inter-organizational knowledge transfer. These provides potential for further research which could explore this complexity in more depth.

It is suggested that the headquarters of a MNC need to have a “heeding capacity” in cases where the target subsidiary’s disseminative capacity is low and tie strength between the subsidiary and the headquarters is weak. It is a capacity for the headquarters to heed what a subsidiary would like to transmit but cannot do well, and this is achieved by listening carefully and not letting language barriers or cultural differences obfuscate the meaning.

By focusing on a dyad between the headquarters and the Japanese subsidiary, the importance of disseminative capacity of a subsidiary is highlighted, which is not often the case in the extant literature. Also, headquarters’ heeding capacity is proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of organizational intellectual capital (IC) components on absorptive capacity (ACAP) such as potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). Furthermore, it attempts to investigate the mechanism through which PACAP and RACAP jointly influence innovation strategies (i.e.) exploitative and exploratory innovations.

This is an explanatory research using a deductive approach. This study uses survey data from 184 manufacturing export firms analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results have found that the cognitive and social capital of a firm positively affects PACAP and RACAP, whereas relational capital has a significant effect on RACAP. Moreover, the study reveals that both potential and realized absorptive capacities considerably lead to the development of organizational exploitative and exploratory innovation strategies.

The research focused on two driving factors, i.e. IC components and ACAP dimensions, and overlooked how each component of IC and ACAP influences ambidextrous innovative strategy.

Providing managers with insights about the critical role of developing IC to facilitate the transfer and exchange of crucial absorptive capacity necessary for ambidextrous innovative strategy.

This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of ACAP and provides useful insights for firms in developing economies to improve their exploitative and exploratory innovation capability. This study likewise reveals the significance of the four dimensions of IC, which can facilitate bringing in knowledge from developing economies.

The objective of this study is to analyze the process of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) occurring in multinational companies (MNCs), examining whether headquarters' absorptive capacity and the human resource management (HRM) practices developed by the parent unit influence success.

The data were collected through a questionnaire completed by the human resource manager of multinational company (MNC) headquarters. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 115 Spanish MNCs by using structural equation models (SEM).

The results indicate that a parent firm's absorptive capacity positively influences RKT and that, in turn, this absorptive capacity is greater if headquarters implement certain practices of employee staffing, training, participation and performance appraisal.

This study extends existing research on RKT by examining the absorptive capacity of headquarters. Its main contribution is to provide evidence that MNCs can improve their RKT through HRM practices developed by the parent unit. This is original because most studies on RKT focus on HRM practices used by subsidiaries.

Aims to examine within the theoretical construct of absorptive capacity several forms of host country national (HCN) learning, leading to improved productivity in the foreign operation, and ultimately yielding more effective knowledge generation and flow throughout the multinational corporation (MNC).

Used open‐ended exploratory field interviews with 51 host country human resource and middle managers in 49 different MNC foreign subsidiaries with headquarters in six different countries. Learning needs in three major employee levels of operative, supervisory/middle management, and upper management were examined. Notes from the interviews were recorded by hand and combined and analyzed for evidence of potentially beneficial forms of HCN learning using procedures of domain and theme analysis in taxonomy development.

A total of 12 categories of potentially beneficial forms of HCN learning were identified and discussed relative to their contributions to increased absorptive capacity. These forms of learning included such areas as new employee orientation and entry job skills, MNC predominant language, MNC home country cross‐cultural awareness, supervision and technical operations management skills, expatriate coaching and liaison skills, and MNC strategy and culture.

Provides helpful insights on absorptive capacity to promote further theory development, as well as practical guidance for future HCN training to enhance the effective transfer of management knowledge and practice.

Past research in international management has had a predominant focus on expatriates, failing to identify important contributions that can be made by host country nationals to promote the effective transfer of knowledge throughout the multinational organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Lean and Six Sigma’s distinctive practices relate to potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). The paper seeks to understand which of the practices in Lean Six Sigma are needed to manage absorptive capacity systematically.

Partial least square based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the theoretical model drawing on a sample of 125 manufacturing organizations in Malaysia. In addition to examining direct effects, the study also examines indirect effects using bootstrapping method to identify possible mediation effects proposed in the model.

The results explain that Lean’s social practices (LSP), Six Sigma’s roles structure (RS) and structured improvement procedure (SIP) positively influence potential absorptive capacity (PACAP). Meanwhile LSP, RS and focus on metrics (FOM) positively influence realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). SIP was found to influence RACAP through PACAP. The analysis reveals the combination of Lean Six Sigma practices that are required in managing PACAP and RACAP differentially.

The study is only confined to manufacturing industries in Peninsular Malaysia. Data collected were cross-sectional in nature. The application of Lean Six Sigma and how it influences absorptive capacity may get sturdier across time, and this may change the effect toward sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage. A longitudinal study may be useful in that context. The study also makes specific recommendations for future research.

The results of this study can be used by Lean Six Sigma practitioners to prioritize the implementation of Lean Six Sigma practices to develop absorptive capacity of the organization through PACAP and RACAP, which needs to be managed differentially as they exert differential outcomes. This would enable organizations to tactfully navigate and balance between PACAP and RACAP in accordance to business strategies and market conditions.

Absorptive capacity in Lean and Six Sigma context has largely been studied as a unidimensional construct or used as a grounding theoretical support. Therefore, understanding the multidimensionality through PACAP and RACAP provide insights on how to enhance and maneuver absorptive capacity through Lean Six Sigma systematically. The findings may pave the way for future research in enhancing the current knowledge threshold in Lean Six Sigma.

The construction industry is a very important part of the Malaysian economy. The government's aim is to make the industry more productive, efficient and safe. Small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are at the core of the Malaysian construction industry and account for about 90 per cent of companies undertaking construction work. One of the main challenges faced by the Malaysian construction industry is the ability to absorb new knowledge and technology and to implement it in the construction phase. The purpose of this paper is to consider absorptive capacity in Malaysian construction SMEs in rural areas.

The research was conducted in three stages: first, understanding the Malaysian construction industry; second, a literature review on the issues related to absorptive capacity and discussions with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB); and third, multiple case studies in five construction SMEs operating in a rural area to validate the factors influencing absorptive capacity.

Nine key factors were identified influencing absorptive capacity in Malaysian construction SMEs operating in rural areas. These factors involved: cost and affordability; availability and supply; demand; infrastructure; policies and regulations; labour readiness; workforce attitude and motivation; communication and sources of new knowledge and; culture.

The key factors influencing absorptive capacity presented in this paper are based on validation from the case studies in five construction SMEs in Malaysia. The research focuses on how they operate in rural areas; however, the research results have wider application than just Malaysia. The key factors identified as influencing absorptive capacity can serve as a basis for considering knowledge absorption in the wider context by SMEs in other developing countries.