Reconciling differing models of the business in international technology transfers

摘要

How do business-unit level managers in subsidiaries of expanding multinational enterprises (MNEs) reconcile the differences they encounter as they deploy the production knowledge of the firm to sister subsidiaries overseas? Differences that are part of the new setting are discoverable such as different engineering units, power supply, or currencies. A more problematic set of differences in technology transfers arises because the multinational enterprise may be an inefficient network for knowledge: with different actors (corporate headquarters, the technology-sending subsidiary, the technologyreceiving subsidiary, the host-country customers, host-country governments, and others) have differing models of the business -including the technology and what it will do for them. We used a series of twelve cases to explore how practitioners systematically handle the processes of transferring production technology overseas to sister subsidiaries or majority-controlled joint-ventures. As we interviewed practitioners responsible for conducting international production technology transfers we discovered a phenomenon in most of the cases which we label Reconciling the differing models of the business and explore some causal factors that lead to managers undertaking it.