Mnc Business Network Theory

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The subsidiary’s power is defined by the resources drawn from its specific business network - consisting of relationships within MNC and with external business partners. Forsgren and colleagues (2005) lack to present a detailed consideration of these negotiations. The business network approach predominately applies a rational decision-making approach and only recently, studies slowly have started to go beyond the rationalistic perception of actors in MNCs (Forsgren & Holm 2010). The network approach like the evolutionary approach is focusing on structuralist topics and thus appears not sufficient to explain the internal working of MNCs. Similar Birkinshaw and colleagues (1996, 2000) focus on the actions of subsidiaries and subsidiaries’…show more content…
The perspective has evolved from the field of macro-sociology, social history and cultural studies (DiMaggio & Powell 1983). Since the 1970s the new institutional theory has been developed to link the institutional argument to the practices and structure of organisations (Scott 1995). DiMaggio and Powell (1983), Tolbert and Zucker (1983) and Meyer and Scott (1983) have deviated from the traditional manners of organisational research by investigating factors from the wider social and cultural environment affecting organisational structures. Institutional theories focus on the extent to which organisations conform to the external institutional environment and examine how organisational survival is not only determined by business and technical entities (such as technical efficiency and resource dependencies) but also by a (local) social entity - the institutional environment (Kostova et al 2008; Meyer & Rowan 1977; Powell 2007). In contrast to the above mentioned international business approaches, institutionalism analyses the social embeddedness of organisation. Instead of assuming rationality within the MNC, institutionalist perceive the rationality of MNC managers as being socially constructed through the…show more content…
Institutions are defined as guiding the access to essential resources; in particular capital and labour (Hall & Soskize 2001). This perspective offers insight on how the institutional environment (mainly) constraints or encourages transfer processes of employment relation practices. The home institutional environment shapes MNC behaviour, such as internationalisation strategies a (Whitley 2001; Harzing & Sorge 2003), employment practices (e.g. Edwards & Ferner 2002; Ferner 2000; Sharpe 2001; Harzing & Sorge 2003; Almond & Ferner 2006; Tempel & Walgenbach 2007), shareholder value pressures (Morgan & Kristensen 2006), control forms of HQs over subsidiaries (e.g. Harzing & Sorge 2003), and power and authority distribution within MNCs (Whitley 2009). The context offers also the opportunity to empower managers and influence intro-organisational
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