دانلود رایگان مقاله مدیریت غیرقانونی چین در بازارهای نوظهور: مزیت رقابتی

 abstract

Recent research draws attention to the large number of expatriates sent abroad by Chinese multinational corporations (CMNCs), especially to emerging markets. It is generally assumed that their large number, and any competitive advantage this generates, relate predominantly to their low cost, compared to other MNCs' expatriates and/or locally available labour. Our research uses an integrative perspective drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), international human resource management (IHRM) and “country of origin” literature and extensive case-study research on 27 CMNCs in 12 emerging markets. This reveals that the competitive advantage created by Chinese expatriates is closely related to the use of expatriates at both managerial and operational levels. It is achieved through human resource management that exploits their relatively lower cost, higher productivity and hardship tolerance (compared to host or third country counterparts) and their knowledge/resource reconfiguration capability, through a centralised and collective expatriation management system. These together enhance CMNCs' competitive advantage through not only offering cost effective and differentiated products but also transferring the reconfiguration knowledge. This study enhances understanding of the competitiveness of emerging market multinationals (EMNCs) by showing how the competencies, combination and management of their expatriates create a distinct source of competitive advantage. It also advances IHRM research on expatriates by investigating their use from a competitive advantage perspective.

6. Conclusion

6.1. Theoretical and practical implications

Existing IB research has recognised EMNCs' improved competitiveness (e.g. Ramamurti and Singh, 2009; Luo and Child, 2015; Rui et al., 2016) but has not offered detailed empirical research into the ways that expatriate deployment, competency and management contributes to EMNCs' competitive advantage. By assessing detailed case-study evidence on Chinese MNCs, this paper advances the understanding of EMNC competitiveness and the contributions to it of their IHRM strategy. This is important finding for all the EMNCs in general, as EMNCs need to strategically build a competitive advantage from their evolutionary paths (Kotabe and Kothari, 2016).

In contrast to past research which implies that EMNCs only obtain limited advantage based on cheap labour and materials and acquired or imitated technology from DMNCs, our study provides evidence that EMNCs can achieve additional advantages through their deployment of expatriates selected for their competencies at managerial and operational level. By using CMNCs as examples, our research also helps to explain why, in contradiction to earlier research suggesting that CMNCs use expatriates mainly because they are cheaper and more cost-effective than managers and workers sourced elsewhere (Cooke, 2014), CMNCs are now expanding rapidly in many emerging markets in which their own expatriates are usually more expensive than local labor. Our case studies reveal the principal motivations for using expatriates, based on their unique characteristics, and the ways in which CMNCs have adapted their centralized HRM strategies to accommodate the need for more local adaptation in expatriate deployment to emerging host countries.

Our study advances IHRM research on expatriates by investigating their use from a competitive advantage perspective, identifying how EMNCs' expatriate deployment creates competitive advantage through not only saving labour cost but also improving efficiency and exploiting reconfiguration capability. It reveals how EMNCs achieve advantage through deploying unique IHRM on expatriate and using of host-country conditions to overcome home-country power and status differences. This offers insight and empirical evidence to enrich the so called “HRM with Chinese characteristics” (Warner, 1993, 1995). It also extends expatriate research on the role and function of expatriates by examining in detail their previously neglected use at operational level, and assessing ways in IHRM strategy which integrates managerial and operational expatriates more effectively promotes the competitiveness of EMNCs.