We examine the role played by subsidiaries' human resource (HR) practices in the development of subsidiaries' knowledge stocks (defi ned as human and social capital) and the association of such knowledge stocks with knowledge transfer from subsidiaries to headquarters in multinational corporations (MNCs). Drawing on a survey of 151 Australian subsidiary senior executives of U.S., German, and Japanese MNCs, our fi ndings suggest that the role of subsidiaries' HR practices lies in nurturing ties between a subsidiary and its external stakeholders and in accumulating knowledge of strategic importance not only for the subsidiary but also for its headquarters.

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Given the sensitive nature of communicating talent status in an 'exclusive' talent management system and the complexity involved in simultaneously sending signals of exclusivity and inclusivity, some organisations avoid open communication and instead opt for 'strategic ambiguity' -intentionally maintaining an element of secrecy and information asymmetry. However, we know relatively little about the effects of this communication approach as a feature of the organisational context on the reactions of employees. Drawing on signalling theory, we examine the reactions of both talents and 'B' players on finding out about their talent status in the context of a company that adopts strategic ambiguity in its communication about talent. The data consists of 24 in-depth, qualitative interviews with individuals with experience of TM in a Finnish subsidiary of a large, US-based multinational corporation. The findings reveal that the contextual effects of strategic ambiguity in talent communication affected the reactions of talents and 'B' players in distinctly different ways, but had few long-term positive effects on the attitudes and behaviours of either group. These findings present important theoretical and practical implications for the role of communication and organisational context in employee reactions to talent pool inclusion and for talent management more generally.