• Citer

Enhancing the scope of the springboard perspective:: A longitudinal process analysis of capability-upgrading of Chinese firms in Belgium

par Liu, Guangyan
Président du jury Cincera, Michele
Promoteur Hensmans, Manuel
Publication Non publié, 2017-09-25

Thèse de doctorat

• Accès en ligne
• Détails
• Contenu
• Statistiques

Résumé :

The springboard perspective argues that emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) can overcome their latecomer disadvantages via aggressive and risk-taking capability-upgrading measures in developed economies. However, extant research is mainly designed to study cross-sectional data sets rather than longitudinal process research. Therefore, the former contributes little to explaining the evolution of EMNEs’ springboard strategy in a consideration of firm-specific capability-upgrading. Building on these main tenets and echoing scholars’ appeal for further research into EMNE’s capability-upgrading and qualitative process perspective, this thesis opens the way for two new avenues of research in the springboard literature: the initial springboard assumption, the springboard advantages of specific host locations – most notably small and open developed economies, and the relationship between different ownership structures and springboard strategy. By default of process research these avenues have been poorly explored. In order to address these avenues and further uncover the evolutionary motivations and processes of springboard behavior, this study uses Chinese multinational enterprise (CMNE) cases to investigate how they achieve firm-specific capability-upgrading through a process perspective.While CMNE strategies in large European markets such as Germany, the UK, and France have received considerable attention, there is a lack of in-depth research on the locational advantages of most notably small and open economies such as Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxemburg. Given the demand for the extension of the aforementioned springboard perspective and the specificity of the research object and setting, I follow a grounded approach as part of inductive research. Grounded theorizing is especially plausible in research contexts calling for theoretical elucidation grounded in the practitioners’ own experiences. This theory can provide a more complete and convincing argument through creative interpretation and systematic rigor. In this study, our major sources of data are collected by interviews. On the basis of a grounded analysis, five aggregate dimensions emerged which relate to the process of CMNE’ capability-upgrading through overseas investment: (I) Capability-upgrading intent, (II) Initial learning challenge, (III) Learning mechanism, (IV) Subsidiary bound evolution, (V) Capability evolution. Furthermore, we developed a three-phase model of springboard capability-upgrading starting from i) headquarter managers’ initial intent, ii) Subsidiary learning challenge, and iii) consequent renegotiation with headquarter managers with regard to the subsidiary’s capability-upgrading role. This result shows that the subsidiary mandates of CMNEs have evolved along with different stages of internationalization.This study makes two main contributions to the springboard literature. First, it challenges assumptions of the springboard perspective through a process perspective. Second, this study contributes to qualitative process research and proposes a grounded model of CMNE evolutionary springboard process based on a three-stage typology. It suggests that CMNEs’ learning through subsidiaries in small and open economies has extended the scope of the springboard perspective through insights into the evolutionary process.