« Why Are Some Subsidiaries of Multinationals the Source of Novel Practices while Others Are Not? National, Corporate and Functional Influences »

« Why Are Some Subsidiaries of Multinationals the Source of Novel Practices while Others Are Not? National, Corporate and Functional Influences »

Nowadays, the practices of the multinational companies have changed considerably. In this research, the researchers focus on the process of exchanges between companies and their subsidiaries and they try to explain why there is a reverse diffusion from the subsidiaries to the panel company in some multinationals. To account for this, they use quantitative methods and not qualitative ones to evaluate the factors which influence the presence or absence of the reverse diffusion.

Theories:

When we decide to do a research, we have to collect a lot of ideas and explanations about it; this is what we call theories. In this ongoing research, the authors present three theories which defend different arguments. First, they talk about the internationally integrated production in MNC’s, then the Human resource network in MNC’s and finally, the position in the global economy.

Also, I am going to refer to the previous theories and the studies conducted in the past, where researchers try to find some explanations to a specific answer.

Concerning the first theory which is related to the international integration, it has been used in other researches as it appeared in several other MNC’s (e.g. Buckley, 2011; Edwards, 2011; Grossman, Helpman and Szeidi, 2003; Rangan and Sengul, 2009).

Then, we can also find previous researches linked to the theory of the human ressource networks in MNC’s which illustrated the fact that HR is able to transfer knowledge across borders (Dickmann and Muller-Carmen, 2006).

Finally, I am going to deal with the theory of the global economy which comprises a lot of arguments like that of Almond (2011, p.534), who talks about the links between the knowledge of a company and the offers of national and regional business systems.

Evidently, these authors defend their theories with a good strategy by resorting to a lot of valid references and examples.

Anyway, if I could add a theory, I will choose the fact that we can use other resources and not only the human one.

HYPOTHESES:

In this paper, the researchers have developed several different hypotheses like simple supposition which is probable and certainly not conclusive.

In this research, there are more exactly six hypotheses which embrace various views and defend different ideas.

First, they contend that “there will be no significant difference between British and Canadian operations as sources of reverse diffusion’ because they have similar assets like their potential economic sources.

Then, the researchers hypothezise that “The British operations of MNC’s will more commonly be the source of reverse diffusion than subsidiaries in Ireland’’ due to the economic policy like taxes ( Gunnigle and Mcguire, 2001). It is apparent that “The British operations of MNC’s will more commonly be the source of reverse diffusion those in Spain” under the pretext that Spain is not specifically concerned with the growth of Europe (Dicken, 2011). The fourth one is “subsidiaries with trading linkages with other parts of the networks are most likely to engage in reverse diffusion” and this is proved with tangible arguments by Dicken who considers MNC’s as “networks within networks”(2011). Then we have the reference to the skills; “Subsidiaries with highly skilled work-forces are those most likely to engage in reverse diffusion” which is illustrated by the linkage between the capabilities of a subsidiary to its role in initiating diffusion (Harzing and Noorderhaven 2006). Finally, we have the last hypothesis which claims that “Subsidiaries within MNC’s that possess a strong network consisting of multiple cross-border communication mechanism within the HR function are those in which reverse diffusion is most likely to occur”.

We notice that the hypotheses are based on solid arguments and valid references.

Study design – sample:

Regarding the structure of the sample selected, the researchers have selected 883 foreignes: 258 from UK, 165 from Canada, 213 from Ireland and 247 from Spain. It is clear that they have chosen just developed countries which can have significant differences, this is why we can say that they choose a judgment sampling . We can also say that they have choosen the number of MNC’s equitably from each country.

Also, the response gate varies from 5 to 50% with the highest one from Ireland. Here, they didn’t account for this phenomenon; they have just mentioned that it has the smallest population.

In this research, they have established a relation between the samples and the country of origin, the size and the industry of the MNC’s. However, it is striking to see that the same MNC recur in the surveys.

This is why we talked about constrained variation and they did the test twice. The test was carried out in two separate years in 2006-2007 and in 2008-2009. The thing that preoccupied us a lot is the quality of information, but they have shown us the opposite by stating that they did the analysis with and without the time dummy and they didn’t find any impact on the result.(Page 154)

If we try to focus more on the design of the survey, we can find that they have picked up a single respondent design. They have opted for it because researchers want to point at a bad experience of a survey ( company level industrial relations survey – Marginson et al., 1993) . The single respondent design is better than the different respondent design in the quality of answers and the reponse rate.

It is apparent that they have used a mixed mode design (Matter, Lynn 2011). They used a face-to-face interviewing and then the online methods which depend on the geographical location. This is really interesting because they seek to take advantage of the two different methods. We know that the Face-to-face interviewing cost a lot but the response rate is high (Oaskhott 2012) and the time can be very long because of travelling. For this plausible reason, they

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