Knowledge Assimilation at Foreign Subsidiaries of Japanese MNCs through Political Sensegiving and Sensemaking
研究了两家日本跨国公司中国子公司中，外派人员与东道国员工通过政治意义给予和意义建构，在知识同化的输出、争议和整合三个阶段中的互动，发现前期单向知识转移为后期整合本地知识奠定基础，否则同化可能停滞。
We analyse political sensegiving and sensemaking by expatriates and host country employees through exportive, contestative and integrative stages of knowledge assimilation at two China-based subsidiaries of different Japanese MNCs. Comparative case study analysis indicated that efforts by expatriates and HQ-based experts to convey, routinize and standardize home country practices during the exportive and contestative stages, while involving traditional ‘one way’ knowledge transfer, can provide a foundation for a subsequent integrative stage, during which host country employees’ locally embedded knowledge is assimilated despite geopolitical asymmetry between home and host countries. Without this foundation, knowledge assimilation can remain ‘frozen’ at the contestative stage, with host country employees resisting importation of good practices from the HQ, and expatriates marginalizing host country employees’ contributions unless these are exceptionally compelling.