Inside the Transnational Social Space: Cross-Border Management and Owner Relationship in a German Subsidiary in Hungary

Zusammenfassung

---

This paper examines the social relationships in and around a German subsidiary in Hungary during the first 15 years of Hungarian transition to a market economy. It draws on a recent conceptual framework that sees multinational corporations as transnational social spaces, in which transnational communities - communities of individuals that exhibit a unique cross-national organisational identity - may emerge. Empirically investigating two basic types of cross-border social relationship in multinational corporations, the paper argues that, due to the constant interplay of crossborder management and ownership relationships, the emergence of transnational communities is a demanding process, with established communities being precarious entities.

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

Auszug

---

Inside the Transnational Social Space: Cross-Border Management and Owner Relationship in a German Subsidiary in Hungary

Introduction

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are some of the most complex and hence most intriguing organisations in the modern world. Their organisational differentiation and geographical spread contribute to their complexity; in fact, some corporations operate in the majority of the world's countries. Moreover, assessment of MNCs and their activities differ greatly. While some consider MNCs to be "a powerful force for the good" (The Economist 2000:19), others hold a more critical view of corporations that span nation states, economic systems, cultures, and religions. This controversy, along with a colourful history of centuries of cross-border business activity undertaken by MNCs and their antecedents, i.e. medieval trade guilds, colonial trading companies and early joint stock companies, have ensured that multinational corporations attract considerable academic interest. The last fifty years, in particular, have seen a surge in attempts to explain the nature und behaviour of multinational corporations, international production, and cross-border management. To date most approaches employ distinctly economic and management perspectives, contributing to the rapidly growing field of international business (IB) literature. In contrast, organisation studies have played a minor but growing role in explaining the cross-border business activities of MNCs.

Early organisation studies of MNCs, undertaken in the 1970s, were limited to looking at how organisational structure is a function of corporate strategy and environmental contingencies. Subsequent studies in the 1980s examined the process by which MNCs are simultaneously shaped by different contextual influences, e.g. home and host country institutional influences or combined organisational and institutional influences. Both streams of research were deeply rooted in a structuralist tradition. Only very recently has this tradition begun to lose sway to a more open structural analysis and action perspective that conceptualises MNCs as transnational social spaces.

The notion of transnational social spaces is an offshoot of labour migration studies, ethnic studies, world society theories and the literature on economic globalisation. The concept suggests that MNCs are arenas in which socioeconomic action takes place, multiple social relationships emerge, sense is made, power is exercised and the dynamics of consensus, conflict and resistance are played out (Geppert/Clark 2003; Morgan 2001a, b; Pries 2001). The transnational social space approach can be clearly distinguished from the other approaches mentioned by the fact...

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

---