Managerial Roles of Country Managers and Coordination Mechanisms: An Empirical Research of Transnational Corporations in Taiwan
Journal
Asia Pacific Management Review
Journal Volume
4
Journal Issue
3
Pages
219-230
Date Issued
1999
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper focuses on the changing roles of country manager s of transnational corporations operating in Taiwan. Recent studies show that country managers in North America and Europe are losing decision-making autonomy and entrepreneurial initiative, as power shifts from national subsidiaries to regional or global product divisions. In this paper, we first develop a framework combining three coordination mechanisms, i.e., subsidiary autonomy, inter- and intra-subsidiary networking, and performance assessment policy to describe and categorize the roles of country managers, and then develop hypotheses concerning how various types of country managers differ with respect to these three coordination mechanisms. An empirical research, using fifty-nine country managers in Taiwan as a sample, was then conducted to test these hypotheses. In addition, we report the results on how the roles of country managers in Taiwan change over time and then compare the trend with that occurred in North America and Europe. The results show that the subsidiary autonomy possessed by country manager is increasing, contradicting the trend identified in the West.
Type
journal article