2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The role of expatriates in the multinational corporations: Making a behavioral context and knowledge transfer
| Project/Area Number |
15530264
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Business administration
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| Research Institution | Hacinohe University |
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Principal Investigator |
KANETSUNA Motoyuki Hachinohe University, Business Faculty, Associate Professor, ビジネス学部, 助教授 (50298064)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KANETSUNA Motoyuki Hachinohe University, Business Faculty, Associate Professor (50298064)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2004
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| Keywords | Multinational Corporation / Information Stickiness / Social Community / Knowledge Transfer Capacity / Behavioral Context / Socialization / Thailand / Japanese Multinational Corporation |
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| Research Abstract |
In the theory of multinational corporations, many scholars have been discussing about why economic activities should be organized within a firm and why foreign direct investment should occur. Internalization theory explains this issue from the failure of markets. Another point of views explains this issue from "the organizational advantage". In this alternative views to the theory of the firm, firms are regarded as social communities for internal transfer of knowledge. This paper develops the latter theory of the firm by considering internal mechanisms of the firm that are able to transfer knowledge more efficiently than markets. The author focuses on socialization that is a typical internal mechanism of the firm. Socialization is the internal mechanism that control individual activities in the firm by making a behavioral context based on trust and commitment. Since this behavioral context encourages voluntary activities of individuals, recipients of knowledge in the firm may be able to acquire enough absorptive capacity that is necessary for knowledge transfer. As a result, the firm may transfer knowledge, in particular tacit knowledge, more efficiently.
Based on a field-study of five Japanese multinational corporations in Thailand, the author examines how the behavioral context is created and how the behavioral context influences the efficiency of knowledge transfer. The result implies that the behavioral context is created through long term teaching processes between sources of knowledge and recipients of knowledge. In particular these processes are important for recipients to acquire problem solving capacity in manufacturing processes that is characteristic of tacit knowledge. As various troubles are taking place in manufacturing processes, recipients need long term experience of problem solving to acquire this capacity.
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Research Products
(2 results)
