 A dual-role typology of multinational subsidiariesJue Wang, Xiaming Liu and Xiaoying Li International Business Review, 2009, vol. 18, issue 6, 578-591 Abstract: This paper argues that, since a subsidiary is embedded in a dual context of both the MNE and the host environment, its strategic role should be assessed by its relative positions and contributions both within the knowledge networks of the MNE and the host country. Based on this, we develop a dual-role typology. The 369 multinational subsidiaries in our sample from China can be classified into as many as 12 out of the 16 conceptual groups of the typology. Our results indicate that dual activists (active both internally and externally) account for only 12% of the total sampled multinational subsidiaries while dual loners (inactive both internally and externally) reach 20%. The results from a larger sample by adding 113 minority foreign share firms show that external knowledge links are positively associated with local Chinese ownership. The central message from this paper is that a large proportion of foreign-invested firms in China are inactive in knowledge exchange either internally or externally or both. Managerial and policy implications are discussed. Keywords: Dual; context; Multinational; enterprises; Subsidiary; typology; Two-way; strategic; relations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:18:y:2009:i:6:p:578-591 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier |
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