R&D employee tenure in MNC subsidiaries: the role of institutional distance and experience
研究分析了制度距离如何影响跨国公司子公司中研发员工的任职期限，发现母国与东道国的正式和非正式制度距离会导致员工任期缩短，而员工的国际经验和公司的东道国经验能调节这一关系。
Long tenure of research and development (R&D) employees helps organisations to utilise employees' knowledge over a sustained time period and strengthen their competitive advantage. It also allows organisations to benefit from the training investments made on their R&D employees. Thus, identifying the determinants of R&D employees' tenure is crucial for designing effective R&D employee retention strategies. This paper analyses the factors explaining R&D employees' tenure in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on institutional theory, we claim that formal and informal institutional distance between MNCs' home and host country might lead to R&D employees' short tenure in subsidiaries. We further suggest that R&D employees' international experience and MNCs' host country experience play a moderating role. We find support for our hypotheses by mobilising an original database that combines patent data and the LinkedIn profiles of 939 R&D employees in 256 MNC subsidiaries in India.