Dynamics of Central Control and Subsidiary Autonomy in the Management of Human Resources: Case-Study Evidence from US MNCs in the UK

Abstract

This article revisits a central question in the debates on the management of multinationals: the balance between centralized policy-making and subsidiary autonomy. It does so through data from a series of case studies on the management of human resources in American multinationals in the UK. Two strands of debate are confronted. The first is the literature on differences between multinationals of different national origins which has shown that US companies tend to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources. It is argued that the literature has provided unconvincing explanations of this pattern, failing to link it to distinctive features of the American business system in which US multinationals are embedded. The second strand is the wider debate on the balance between centralization and decentralization in multinationals. It is argued that the literature neglects important features of this balance: the contingent oscillation between centralized and decentralized modes of operation and (relatedly) the way in which the balance is negotiated by organizational actors through micro-political processes whereby the external structural constraints on the company are defined and interpreted. In such negotiation, actors' leverage often derives from exploiting differences between the national business systems in which the multinational operates.Keywords: US multinational companies, human resource management, centralization, subsidiary autonomy, power This article uses case-study evidence on the management of employment relations in US multinational companies (MNCs) to consider a staple question of the literature on multinationals: the balance between centralized policymaking and subsidiary autonomy. It confronts two strands of debate. First, it addresses the body of research that has examined differences between MNCs of different national origins. US companies have been found to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources and other employment-relations policies. While the findings of the present research are broadly in line with those of other studies, it tries to go beyond the existing literature to link observed patterns to distinctive features of the American business system in which these MNCs are 'embedded'.Second, it explores the implications of its findings for some of the dominant themes of the familiar literature on the degree of central control over subsidiary operations. This is one of the key questions of multinational operation; it Organization Studies 25(3): 363-391

Swimming against the tide: Outward staffing flows from multinational subsidiaries

“…Thus institutional theory offers a counterbalance to the rational perspective proposed by RBV, by recognizing the impact of societal expectations and institutions on managerial decisions. For example, the institutionalized nature of control mechanisms in MNEs of US origin (Ferner et al, 2004;2007) may decrease the likelihood of outward staffing flows in US owned subsidiaries.…”

Autonomia para gestão estratégica de pessoas no setor público federal: perspectivas de análise e agenda de pesquisa

“…Diversos são os autores que, de diferentes perspectivas, indicaram condicionantes de natureza formal para esse processo de transição como: estrutura, função e estratégia da organização, características da força de trabalho e ambiente legal trabalhista (e.g., Datta, Guthrie e Wright, 2005;De Pablos, 2004;Farndale et al, 2010;McCracken e Wallace, 2000;Muller, 1999;Muritiba et al, 2010), Diogo Ribeiro da Fonseca • Pedro Paulo Murce Meneses • Antônio Isidro da Silva Filho • Natália Gomes Campos até aqueles de natureza mais informal, a exemplo das culturas nacionais de trabalho e organizacionais, as redes sociais informais e as percepções de atores organizacionais (e.g., Brandl e Pohler, 2010;Ferner et al, 2004;Gooderham, Nordhaug e Ringdal, 1999;Truss, 2003Truss, , 2008.…”

“…Pesquisas nesse sentido podem elucidar quais fatores se constituem efetivamente em antecedentes e consequentes da maior autonomia em GP. Finalmente, cabe ressaltar que não se descartam as possíveis interfaces com a literatura correlata, e relativamente mais consolidada, de autonomia no contexto de multinacionais (Young e Tavares, 2004, para uma revisão desse campo) com estudos acerca das motivações que ensejam a criação de sistemas mais centralizados ou descentralizados de GP, sua relação com o ambiente institucional e estratégias organizacionais, implicações para as práticas adotadas em subsidiárias e efeitos em seu desempenho (e.g., Muritiba et al, 2010;Farndale et al, 2010;Ferner et al, 2004). Tais questões convergem com lacunas teóricas e empíricas da implantação da GEP no setor público e podem subsidiar teórica e metodologicamente pesquisas nesse campo.…”

A Comparison of Random Forest with ECOC-Based Classifiers

“…The U.S. MNC is a division of a larger conglomerate and reflects typical features of a Fordist work system which is typical of a MNCs with a U.S. home base (Faulkner et al 2002;Ferner et al 2004;Royle 2002; Wächter et al 2003). The key goal of the U.S. company is to be the cost-leader (Porter 1980) in the global market for standardized lifts & escalators.…”

“…This third literature has mainly focused on the areas of HRM (Edwards and Ferner 2002;Ferner 1997;Ferner et al 2004;Ferner et al 2000;Wächter et al 2003) and employment and industrial relations (MullerCamen et al 2001;Muller 1998;Turner et al 1997) with recent expansion of the discussion to diffusion of work systems (Saka 2004). The latter work analyses how work system designs developed in the Japanese headquarters were actively translated and, with it, hybridized in the British subsidiaries.…”