Towards a cross-cultural framework of strategic international human resource control: the case of Taiwanese high-tech subsidiaries in the USA

Abstract

Due to the growing expansion of newly emerging multinational companies (MNCs) in the USA market, it seems pertinent to explore how to manage their Western industrialized subsidiaries in terms of human resource management. This study combines the institutionalism, resource dependence perspective, and control theory to provide an integrative framework in an attempt to investigate the cross-cultural determinants of strategic international human resource control over MNCs' subsidiaries. By a qualitative analysis of 10 Taiwanese top high-tech manufacturing companies operating in the USA, our findings are as follow: In order to perform subsidiary's value-added activities, multinationals need to identify the value and capabilities need for these activities. At the same time, subsidiaries also need to compare the cultural advantage of the home country in terms of these activities. In addition, from the perspective of cross-cultural influence, input control is designed to respond to high integration and high adaptation; output control is executed in the case of low integration and high cultural adaptation; while behavioural control is used to respond to high integration and low adaptation, simultaneously in the case of low value of subsidiary's activities.

Keywords:

• cultural adaptation
• cultural integration
• international human resource control
• subsidiary's role