Developing and Integrating HRM Practices in MNC Subsidiaries in China

Whilst previous research on Human Resource Management (HRM) in subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs) has focused extensively on the HRM practices that exist in foreign subsidiaries and the extent to which they resemble MNC home country and/or local host country practices, considerably less attention has been directed at the question of how these practices come to exist. Accordingly, this thesis aims to shed light on the processes that shape HRM practices and capabilities in MNC subsidiaries. The main contribution of the thesis is the focus on how; how HRM practices are integrated in MNC subsidiaries, and how subsidiary HRM capabilities are developed through involvement in social networks. Furthermore, this thesis includes a time aspect which, despite not being purely longitudinal, provides an indication of the ongoing changes in HRM in MNC subsidiaries in China. Data for this study were collected in 2005-2006 through structured face to face interviews with 153 general managers and HR managers in 87 subsidiaries of European MNCs located in China. Five of the six thesis papers build on this questionnaire data and one paper builds on qualitative data collected at the same time. Two papers build on dual data sets, meaning that they in addition to the abovementioned data include quantitative questionnaire data from 1996 and 1999 respectively. The thesis focuses on the following four sub-questions i) To what extent do subsidiary HRM practices resemble parent MNC and host country practices? How has this changed over time and why? ii) How are HRM practices integrated into MNC subsidiaries and why are certain integration mechanisms used? iii) How does involvement in internal and external social networks influence subsidiary HRM capabilities? iv) What factors influence the strategic role of the subsidiary HR department? Regarding the first sub-question the findings indicate that the HRM practices of MNC subsidiaries in China are converging with both local company practices and parent MNC practices. This is interesting in the sense that it suggests that the isomorphic pressures the subsidiary faces from the MNC and from its local host environment are not always in conflict with each other. Concerning the question of how HRM practices are integrated into MNC subsidiaries and why certain integration mechanisms are used, the thesis provides a fine-grained examination of four mechanisms that MNCs use to integrate HRM practices in subsidiaries. The findings suggest that MNCs use a variety of different integration mechanisms as complements rather than as substitutes for each other. Furthermore, it is apparent that different contextual factors in the subsidiary and the subsidiary-headquarters relationship influence why certain mechanisms are or are not used. The most interesting contribution of the thesis in regard to the third question is that it highlights the importance of network involvement for learning about HRM practices in the Chinese context. Networks with other MNCs in China clearly emerged as particularly important contributors to enhanced HRM capabilities. Finally, concerning the fourth sub-question the findings indicate that the role of the HR department in MNC subsidiaries in China had become more strategic between 1999 and 2006.

Managers Talk about Gender: What Managers in Large Transnational Corporations Say about Gender Policies, Structures and Practices

Mainstream research on management generally continues to ignore gender relations. Even so, over recent years there has been a major growth of international research on gender relations in organizations. Yet, most of this has focused on gender relations in lower or middle levels rather than at the apex of the organization. This book draws on research on gender policies, structures and practices of management in large Finnish corporations. It builds on earlier survey work of gender policies in the 100 largest corporations in Finland, to examine, through qualitative interviews, more detailed gendered processes in seven selected corporations. These represent corporations that are ‘relatively active’, ‘moderately active’, and ‘not active’ in relation to gender equality. Key issues include contrasts between formal policies and organizational practices; different corporate contexts and individual managers’ views; definition and scope of gender policy; and the relation of gender policies and diversity policy. This focus on gender policies is understood and located within organizational structures, most obviously gendered corporate hierarchies. Important structures include national context in relation to transnationalization, relations of headquarters and subsidiaries, and interrelations of management, policy development and policy implementation. Gender relations in practice and gender practices are considered in more detail. These women and men managers operate at the intersections of gendered transnational managerial work, careers and family-type relations, including marriage and children, or lack thereof. Women and men managers may be part of the same management levels or management teams, but have totally different family-type situations and gendered experiences. Interconnections of management, domestic life and transnationalizations are intensely gendered matters. The debate on the public/private continues to be important for both gender relations and organizational relations, but complicated through transnationalizations. The modern transnational corporation is considered in terms of gender divisions and gender power, with particular reference to top management. The concluding discussion notes implications for research and policy.

Conditionally One of 'Us' : A Study of Print Media, Minorities and Positioning Practices

This study deals with how ethnic minorities and immigrants are portrayed in the Finnish print media. The study also asks how media users of various ethnocultural backgrounds make sense of these mediated stories. A more general objective is to elucidate negotiations of belonging and positioning practices in an increasingly complex society. The empirical part of the study is based on content analysis and qualitative close reading of 1,782 articles in five newspapers (Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet, Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat) during various research periods between 1999 and 2007. Four case studies on print media content are followed up by a focus group study involving 33 newspaper readers of Bosnian, Somalian, Russian, and 'native' Finnish backgrounds. The study draws from different academic and intellectual traditions; mainly media and communication studies, sociology and social psychology. The main theoretical framework employed is positioning theory, as developed by Rom Harré and others. Building on this perspective, situational self-positioning, positioning by others, and media positioning are seen as central practices in the negotiation of belonging. In support of contemporary developments in social sciences, some of these negotiations are seen as occurring in a network type of communicative space. In this space, the media form one of the most powerful institutions in constructing, distributing and legitimising values and ideas of who belongs to 'us', and who does not. The notion of positioning always involves an exclusionary potential. This thesis joins scholars who assert that in order to understand inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms, the theoretical starting point must be a recognition of a decent and non-humiliating society. When key insights are distilled from the five empirical cases and related to the main theories, one of the major arguments put forward is that the media were first and foremost concerned with a minority actor's rightful or unlawful belonging to the Finnish welfare system. However, in some cases persistent stereotypes concerning some immigrant groups' motivation to work, pay taxes and therefore contribute are so strong that a general idea of individualism is forgotten in favour of racialised and stagnated views. Discussants of immigrant background also claim that the positions provided for minority actors in the media are not easy to identify with; categories are too narrow, journalists are biased, the reporting is simplifying and carries labelling potential. Hence, although the will for the communicative space to be more diverse and inclusive exists — and has also in many cases been articulated in charters, acts and codes — the positioning of ethnic minorities and immigrants differs significantly from the ideal.

Philosophy as a Path to Happiness : Attainment of Happiness in Arabic Peripatetic and Ismaili Philosophy

The aim of the dissertation is to explore the idea of philosophy as a path to happiness in classical Arabic philosophy. The starting point is in comparison of two distinct currents between the 10th and early 11th centuries, Peripatetic philosophy, represented by al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, and Ismaili philosophy represented by al-Kirmānī and the Brethren of Purity. They initially offer two contrasting views about philosophy in that the attitude of the Peripatetics is rationalistic and secular in spirit, whereas for the Ismailis philosophy represents the esoteric truth behind revelation. Still, they converge in their view that the ultimate purpose of philosophy lies in its ability to lead man towards happiness. Moreover, they share a common concept of happiness as a contemplative ideal of human perfection, which refers primarily to an otherworldly state of the soul s ascent to the spiritual world. For both the way to happiness consists of two parts: theory and practice. The practical part manifests itself in the idea of the purification of the rational soul from its bodily attachments in order for it to direct its attention fully to the contemplative life. Hence, there appears an ideal of philosophical life with the goal of relative detachment from the worldly life. The regulations of the religious law in this context appear as the primary means for the soul s purification, but for all but al-Kirmānī they are complemented by auxiliary philosophical practices. The ascent to happiness, however, takes place primarily through the acquisition of theoretical knowledge. The saving knowledge consists primarily of the conception of the hierarchy of physical and metaphysical reality, but all of philosophy forms a curriculum through which the soul gradually ascends towards a spiritual state of being along an order that is inverse to the Neoplatonic emanationist hierarchy of creation. For Ismaili philosophy the ascent takes place from the exoteric religious sciences towards the esoteric philosophical knowledge. For Peripatetic philosophers logic performs the function of an instrument enabling the ascent, mathematics is treated either as propaedeutic to philosophy or as a mediator between physical and metaphysical knowledge, whereas physics and metaphysics provide the core of knowledge necessary for the attainment of happiness.

Diakoniatyön paikka ihmisten arjessa

This study examines the diaconia work of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church from the standpoint of clients. The role of diaconia work has grown since the early 1990s recession, and since it established itself as one of the actors along with other social organizations. Previous studies have described the changing role of diaconal work, especially from the standpoint of diaconia workers and co-operators. This research goes back to examine, beyond the activities of the diaconia work of everyday practices, its relations of ruling which are determining practices. The theoretical and methodological framework rises from the thinking of Dorothy E. Smith, the creator of institutional ethnography. Its origins are in feminism, Marxism, phenomenology, etnomethodology, and symbolic interactionism. However, it does not represent any school. Unlike the objectivity-based traditional sociology, institutional ethnography has its starting point in everyday life, and people s subjective experience of it. Everyday life is just a starting point, and is used to examine everyday life s experiences of hidden relations of ruling, linking people and organizations. The level of generalization is just on the relations of ruling. The research task is to examine those meanings of diaconia work which are embedded in its clients experiences. The research task is investigated with two questions: how diaconia work among its clients takes shape and what kinds of relations of ruling exist in diaconia work. The meanings of diaconia work come through an examination of the relations of ruling, which create new forms of diaconal work compared with previous studies. For the study, two kinds of data were collected: a questionnaire and ethnographic fieldwork. The first data set was collected from diaconal workers using the questionnaire. It gives background information of the diaconia work process from the standpoint of the clients. In the ethnographic study there were two phases. The first ethnographic material was collected from one local parish by observing, interviewing clients and diaconal workers and gathering documents. The number of observations was 36 customer appointments, and 29 interviews. The second ethnographic material was included as a part of the analysis, in which ruling relations in people s experiences were collected from the transcribed data. Close reading and narrative analysis are used as analysing methods. The analysis has three phases. First, the experiences are identified with close reading; the following step is to select some of the institutional processes that are shaping those experiences and are relevant for the research. At the third stage, those processes are investigated in order to describe analytically how they determine people s experience. The analysis produces another narrative about diaconia work, which provides tools for examining the diaconal work from a new perspective. Through the analysis it is possible to see diaconia as an exchange ratio, in which the exchange takes place between a client and a diaconia worker, but also more broadly with other actors, such as social workers, shop clerks, or with other parishioners. The exchange ratio is examined from the perspective of power which is embedded in the client s experiences. The analysis reveals that the most important relations of ruling are humiliation and randomness in the exchange ratio of diaconia work; valuating spirituality above the bodily being; and replacing official social work. The results give a map about the relations of ruling of diaconia work which gives tools to look at diaconia work s meanings to the clients. The hidden element of humiliation in the exchange ratio breaks the current picture of diaconia work. The ethos of the holistic encounters and empathic practices are shown to be of another kind when spirituality is preferred to the bodily being. Nevertheless, diaconia appears to be a place for a respectful encounter, especially in situations where the public sector s actors are retreating on liability or clients are in a life crisis. The collapse of the welfare state structures imposes on diaconia work tasks that have not previously belonged to it. At the local level, clients receive partners from diaconia workers in order to advocate them in the welfare system. Actions to influence the wider societal structures are not reached because of lacking resources. An awareness of the oppressive practices of diaconia work and their critical reviewing are the keys to the development of diaconia work, since there are such practices even in holistic and respectful diaconia work. While the research raises new information for the development of diaconia work, it also opens up new aspects for developing other kinds of social work by emphasizing the importance of taking people s experiences seriously. Keywords: diaconia work, institutional ethnography, Dorothy E. Smith, experience, customer, relations of ruling.