Unravelling Learning within Multinational Corporations*
通过对比波兰、土耳其、意大利和德国化工子公司的案例，研究制度差异如何影响子公司从跨国公司学习的效果，发现母国制度环境不利时，人的能动性对学习起关键作用。
This article explores the impact of institutional variation on the extent to which subsidiary firms learn from multinational corporations. Learning is conceptualized here as consisting of two aspects: knowledge flow and reinforcement of or change in routines to incorporate the behaviourist assumptions of learning into the international business field. The research is based on in‐depth case studies that systematically compare the ways in which parent company knowledge diffuses to Polish, Turkish, Italian and German subsidiary firms in the chemical industry. The findings show that even though firms face the same global pressure to integrate and pursue the same international strategy, their learning outcomes are not the same. There is heterogeneous learning as a result of differences in the institutional context of home countries. Where institutional structures are not favourable to learning, the proactive or reactive orientation of actors to identifying future needs and modifying existing schemata – which highlight the importance of human agency – is significant in explaining learning.