Coordination of Foreign Subsidiaries in Multinational Enterprises (Planung, Organisation und Unternehmungsführung) - Couverture souple

Launer, Markus A

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 3899363973 ISBN 13 : 9783899363975

Editeur : Josef Eul Verlag, 2005

Synopsis

The approaches of differentiated coordination of foreign subsidiaries hardly get recognized and implemented by multinational enterprises in business practice. This could be due to lack of practicability of the existing coordination approaches. To gain a better acceptance of these approaches in entrepreneurial practice this thesis adapts and enhances the most important coordination approaches in an initial study performed 1993–2000. The findings were back tested with an independent sample in 2004. As a result, the new network approach by Bartlett/Ghoshal (2002) had to be given preference over the extended EPRG scheme by Perlmutter (1965) on a group level. The most advanced and practical approach on the group level was the requisite complexity by Nohria/Ghoshal (1997). The concepts differentiating single subsidiaries showed diverse results. The contingency approaches showed neither for the resource level of subsidiaries nor for the environmental complexity significant results. The more advanced approach internal differentiation by Nohria/Ghoshal (1997) including transaction cost considerations produced practical results and ready-to-use guidelines. However, the model had to be adapted to practical needs. All results were in line with former international research. The findings are summarized in an advanced and comprehensive approach for the coordination of foreign subsidiaries in multinational enterprises.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Markus A. Launer was born 1964 in Karlsruhe, Germany and lives in New York. He is Managing Partner of Transatlantic Investor Relations LLC in New York City, representing and advising European corporations in the North American capital market. He is member of the Board of Management of the German American Chambers New York Inc. and a lecturer at the Fachhochschule Braunschweig (Strategy and Innovation Management). He holds a degree in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) from the University of Mannheim (1993) and completed his Ph. D. program at the Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, in 2005.

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3. Initial Study to Adjust Selected Coordination Approaches to Pragmatic Needs (1993 - 2000) (p. 35-36)

3.1 Selection of Suitable Coordination Approaches

Since coordination is considered a second basic principle in management, many approaches claim to contribute to the coordination of subsidiaries. It seems to be unclear in theory and practice what really contributes to the subject. Therefore in a broad literature survey coordination was theoretically researched and the most suitable coordination approaches were selected to be researched in more depth (Launer, 2004a). While most coordination approaches take the internal and external circumstances influencing coordination for granted, Kutschker and Schmid (2004) describe possibilities to reduce the necessity of international coordination.

Through outsourcing strategies, accumulation of organizational slack and flexible resources, the coordination intensity within a group can be reduced. These thoughts might be important and need to be taken into consideration but do not contribute towards a coordination model. There are plenty of guidelines how to use single coordination mechanisms in Multinationals (Ghoshal, 1987; Hedlund, 1981; Van Maanen/Schein, 1979). Most of them concentrate on the debate whether to centralize or decentralize resources and decision-making. However, the mechanisms themselves do not provide guidelines for their use.

They describe a continuum between high and low. The internal and external circumstances have to be seen in connection with the coordination mechanisms to form a model (Nohria/Ghoshal, 1997). Therefore the Trilogy of structure, strategy and culture was examined to determine whether this constitutes a coordination model. After researching several international strategy models, the only suitable one were the strategy portfolio based on Perlmutters EPRG scheme (1965) which distinguishes ethno-, poly-, geo-, and region-centric strategies as well as the Integration-Responsiveness-Framework by Prahalad and Doz' (1987).. The same applied for the influencing factor corporate culture. Welge and Holtbrügge (2003) showed a model describing the level of the acculturation of single subsidiaries. But the model is based on the need of local acculturation without providing guidelines when to acculturate, deculturate, integrate, or segregate.

The traditional corporate structure models were not usable to describe coordination matters (Nohria/Ghoshal, 1997). The definition of export departments, produc-versus-area divisions or the matrix and hybrid structures did not provide support for a coordination model (Bartlett/Ghoshal, 1990). Even the advanced models such as the various international structural stages model (Stopford/Wells, 1972; Franko, 1976; Egelhof, 1982) did not provide a foundation for coordination approaches. A new model describing structure as integrated and differentiated coordination patterns provided a suitable coordination model, the approach of the Requisite Complexity (Nohria/Ghoshal, 1997). Explicit strategy guidelines are provided by the allocation strategies based on Porters (1985, 1989) competition models. However, the configuration strategy describes the centralization-versus-decentralization of resources and departments and the standardization-versus-differentiation of products. It does not provide support for coordination issues.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Josef Eul Verlag
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 3899363973
• ISBN 13: 9783899363975
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 106
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Allemagne