Internationalization & Hrm Strategies Across Subsidiaries in Multinational Corporations from Emerging Economies – a Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT

The rapid rise of multinational Corporations (MNCs) from emerging economies has led to greater interest and urgency in developing a better understanding of the deployment and diffusion of managerial strategies from their perspective and without assuming the prevailing Western ethnocentric orthodoxy. This paper develops a conceptual framework of global HR strategies and practices in MNCs from emerging economies across their subsidiaries in both developed and developing markets. Using data from a pilot study of an Indian MNC, it provides insights and guidance into the motives, strategic opportunities and constraints in cross national transfer of HR policies and practices in a multi-polar world.

Key Words: New Multinationals; Emerging Economies; India; Internationalization Strategies; Global HR Strategies.

1. Introduction

“In the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces, industries, companies, and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine” (Engardio, 2008: 23)

Research on MNCs has tended to be focused on those from developed countries establishing subsidiaries either in other developed economies (e.g. U.S. to the UK) or into developing economies (e.g. the U.S.A into Latin America). U.S. firms invested in Europe from before 1939 but the major push came after World War Two (Ferner, Almond, Clark, Colling, Edwards, Holden, & Muller-Camen, 2004). Japanese MNCs began to locate in advanced economies, particularly in the 1980s. While, there has been a rich stream of MNC research in this area, there has been relatively less research on newer industrialized (e.g. Taiwan, India and South Korea) to the more industrialized economies (Glover & Wilkinson, 2007, p.1438). This is a new era which is often referred to as a ‘new geography of investments’ (UNCTAD, 2004). Whilst most MNCs come from the world’s top five economies, a growing number are from developing and newer industrialized economies. UNCTAD categorizes developing...