Unravelling learning within multinational corporations

Citation

Saka-Helmhout, A. (2008), "Unravelling learning within multinational corporations", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 22 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2008.08122bad.004

Unravelling learning within multinational corporations

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 22, Issue 2.

Unravelling learning within multinational corporations

Saka-Helmhout A. British Journal of Management, September 2007, Vol. 18 No. 3, Start page: 294, No. of pages: 17

Purpose To investigate the effects of host-country social institutions on subsidiary learning and knowledge transfer in multinational companies (MNC). Design/methodology/approach Assumes that organizations learn when their experience results in behaviour change, defines organizational learning as a combination of improving actions and acquiring new, strategically important knowledge, and differentiates between lower- and higher-level learning, seeing the first as relating to maintenance or elaboration of existing routines, and the second as involving a cognitive process in changing to new routines. Discusses national social institutional structures, uses the phrase “varieties of capitalism” to denote variation in social institutions, and examines learning, regarding organizational practice and product knowledge, in Polish, Turkish, German and Italian subsidiaries of one German and one British chemical industry MNC, drawing conclusions from interviews with parent and subsidiary managers, site visits and documentary evidence. Findings Characterizes the British MNC’s governance as compartmentalized and the German MNC’s as collaborative, notes that both companies follow similar international integration strategies, but records differences in control methods and in the extent of knowledge transferred. Tabulates variation in subsidiary learning due to both parent company strategy and subsidiary learning orientation, classing subsidiaries’ approaches to learning as proactive or reactive. Originality/value Extends MNC and organizational learning literatures.ISSN: 1045-3172Reference: 36AY899DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2007.00513.x

Keywords: Chemical industries, Information transfer, Learning, Multinationals, Organizational behaviour, Social norms