Abstract
The rapid rise of China and its foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe has drawn much attention in recent years. While the majority of Westerns multinational companies investing abroad tend to utilise their competitive advantages abroad, the majority of Chinese MNEs invest into the German market for strategic assets (Jungbluth 2016; Knörich 2010, 2016a; Liu and Woywode 2013). As Chinese MNEs expand their businesses in Europe, it becomes important to understand how Chinese investors seeking competitive advantages manage the workforce in their foreign operations. This study combines the political economy framework by Edwards and colleagues (2007) with the system, society, dominance, and organisational effects (SSDC) framework by Delbridge and colleague (2011) to examine ‘how are German subsidiaries and their human resource management and employment relations practices affected by their Chinese parent companies’. In order to answer the main research question, a multiple case study was conducted in six different German subsidiaries owned by Chinese companies.The study reveals that Chinese companies adopt a light-touch approach toward their German subsidiaries which allows local organisational actor to exercise their agency by drawing on resources from the macro level. The first contribution of this study is that several aspects of the macro and micro level influence the Chinese management and German works council, including by the combined framework suggested system, dominance, institutional, market, and organisational factors, as well as organisational actors. A second contribution is the observation that in the majority of the studied Chinese MNEs investing into the German market, the exercise of agency by the local organisational actors is of significance. The multiple case study attempts to give insights into how local organisational actors of German subsidiaries owned by Chinese companies gain more autonomy and are empowered through their context.
| Date of Award | 1 Aug 2019 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Johann Fortwengel (Supervisor) & Tony Edwards (Supervisor) |