Guest Editors’ Introduction: People Management and Emerging Market Multinationals

Abstract

There is a very extensive body of literature on how multinationals manage their people in different national contexts. However, the bulk of this literature focuses on the case of multinationals from the advanced industrial economies, and to a considerable extent, the United States. Very much less has been written on multinationals with their country of origin being an emerging market, and what there has focuses on a very limited number of preferred cases. The growing importance of emerging economies has lead to an upsurge of strategy research on the topic (Wright, Filatotchev, Hoskisson and Peng, 2005); however, research on HRM has not paid enough attention to Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises (EMNEs). Many EMNEs tend to be smaller in size with considerably lesser resources and international experience than their counterparts from developed markets limiting their ability to transfer management practice across their subsidiaries (Thite, Wilkinson, & Shah, 2012), although there are important exceptions to this rule. This introductory article seeks to contribute to the emerging body of literature in this area, through seeking to encourage fresh insights particularly on the varieties of people management encountered in different national contexts.Correspondence to: Geoffrey Wood, Professor of International Business, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL UK, Phone: +44 (0)24 765 24502, Email: Geoffrey.Wood@wbs.ac.uk.Emerging market MNCs have become increasingly prominent -and at times, controversial -within both the developing and developed world. This has encompassed such a diverse range of activities such as takeovers of failing Western firms, the buying up of land and mineral resources in Africa, and the establishment of (often) low cost manufacturing companies in target markets (or in countries with which such markets enjoy free trade agreements) in order to circumnavigate remaining tariff barriers. Whilst the diversity of such activity makes it difficult to draw out general trends, a few issues are of particular importance. The first is the political dimension of MNC activity, an issue relatively neglected in the business and management literature. Where MNCs originate in less democratic countries, relations with parent country governments and senior

Adoption of High‐Performance Work Systems by Local Subsidiaries of Developed Country and Turkish MNEs and Indigenous Firms in Turkey

“…When compared to DC MNEs, EC MNEs are not large in absolute terms, but many of these firms are diversified globally (Thite, Wilkinson, & Shah, ) and are becoming increasingly important actors, particularly in their own triad regions and in less developed regions such as Africa (Demirbag, Tatoglu, & Glaister, ; United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], ; Wilkinson, Wood, & Demirbag, ). Their aspirations to play a greater role in global markets increasingly motivate them to adopt new management techniques (e.g., HPWSs) to strengthen both their overseas and domestic subsidiaries (Chang, Mellahi, & Wilkinson, ; Chang, Wilkinson & Mellahi, ; Khavul et al, ; Madhok & Keyhani, ).…”

“…DC MNEs, however, use training and skill development component of HPWS to deliver measurable outcomes and improve employee motivation in their subsidiaries (K. R. Bartlett et al, ; Chen et al, ; Tregaskis et al, ). While EC MNEs have a dynamic pool of resources and the capability of deploying these resources to growth markets (Engardio, Arndt, & Geri, ), their global operating system diverges from that of DC MNEs (Girod, Belin, & Thomas, ; Wilkinson, Wood, & Demirbag, ).…”

Do Parent Units Benefit from Reverse Knowledge Transfer?

“…Unlike the DMNEs, the acquisitions of emerging market MNEs (EMNEs), especially in the developed markets, are driven by knowledge seeking motives to a large extent (Bangara, Freeman and Schroder, 2012;Buckley et al, 2016a;Jormanainen and Koveshnikov, 2012;Kedia, Gaffney and Clampit, 2012;Luo and Tung, 2007;Mathews, 2006;Thite et al, 2015;Wilkinson, Wood and Demirbag, 2014). As latecomers, these acquisitions are vital for them to rapidly catch up with their global competitors (springboard).…”

Expatriation in Chinese MNEs in Africa: an agenda for research

“…Pertinent to expatriation policy and practice, this so-called new mode of 'colonialism' in emerging markets has been associated with new forms of economic resource and social exploitation based on commodity and energy needs of high economic growth investing countries such as China, and appears more concerned with Chinese expatriate deployment than local human resource development, skills transfer and employee rights in local labour markets. Hence, Wilkinson, Wood and Demirbag (2014) note that Chinese MNEs in African countries such as South Africa and Zambia deploy both expatriate semi-skilled and unskilled workers in spite of the availability of local labour.…”